





PWN 601995 
ee | a 
LaLag ig aL SEW“ 


£ 


Divisi. A VQ 
Nection - BB 4 fh 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


httos://archive.org/details/selectedarticlesOObema_1 


Ginn PAL ING Dy DeOnOuhae Sela ee! S 


PROHIBITION 


MODIFICATION OF THE 
VOLSTEAD LAW 
























THE HANDBOOK SERIES 





AGRICULTURAL CREDIT AG 


AMERICANIZATION, 2d ed....... 1.80 
CLOSED SHOP, 2d edoececccccon.. 2.00 
DEBATERS’ MANUAL................. 1.50 


DAR AMEN PCE MS LU NTIS 

CAcENans OWNERSHIP 
OF ‘COAL MINES i) ame 2.40 

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 
EMPLOYM’T MANAGEM’T... 2.40 
MODERN INDUSTRIAL 


MOVEMENTS 2.40 
PROBLEMS OF LABOR........... 2.40 
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT... 2.40 
NEGRO} PROBLEM 0c ue 


PRISONURERORMi2 ee 125 
PROHIBITION ek ee ee) 
SHORT DALLO TI eee 125 


SOCIALISM Me NA cee MOA OS La 1.25 
STUDY OF LATIN AND GREEK 1.80 
LDA XA TION neal Wanner 


THE HANDBOOK SERLES 


SELECTED ARTICLES ON 


PROHIBITION 


MODIFICATION OF THE 
VOLSTEAD LAW 


COMPILED BY 
LAMAR T. BEMAN, A.M., LL.B. 
Attorney at Law, Cleveland, O. 


NEW YORK 
THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 
1924 


Published December, 1924 


Printed im United States of America 


To the memory of Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of 
the Declaration of Independence, physician, patriot, 
and moral pioneer, who saw clearly and fought cour- 
ageously the three great abuses of his time,—the mis- 
government of the mother country, the devastation 
and misery wrought by the abuse of ardent spirits, and 
the de-education produced by the general study of the 


dead languages, this volume is inscribed. 


Nad) , 
Ay ’ 


wat 
ee 
, 


wa q 
P 





EXPLANATORY NOTE 


National prohibition has now been in effect for over 
four years. The results of its operation have been ac- 
corded the highest praise by its advocates and supporters, 
and the most severe condemnation by its opponents. It 
is interesting to observe how people, with a few excep- 
tions, will watch the workings of a new law that makes 
a great national experiment and see the results as wholly 
beneficial or entirely harmful according to their pre- 
conceived opinions. Most people will first consider where 
their personal or financial interest lies, then shape their 
opinions and arguments on great national issues so as to 
support their interests, and finally in the operation of 
a new law be able to see only such results as they want 
to see, such as conform to their preconceived notions. 

Even were the issue not befogged by propaganda, 
four years would be entirely too short a time to be the 
basis of a conclusion as to the benefits of national pro- 
hibition. This difficulty has been increased by a constant 
barrage of propaganda. On both sides of the question 
the forces are highly organized and have spent large 
sums of money for publicity purposes, publishing hun- 
dreds of pamphlets and leaflets, as well as a considerable 
number of books, using newspaper advertising exten- 
sively, often getting their prepared material into the 
news and editorial columns, and publishing their own 
papers and periodicals, until the reading public has been 
deluged with ex-parte statements that make no effort to 
give the whole truth. ‘Propaganda of all sorts,” says 
Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University, “in 
the very essence of its nature, can have no necessary re- 
lation to truth. Equally it is bound to be actively opposed 
to any truth which does not fit into and accord with the 


Vili SELECTED ARTICLES | 


particular ends toward which it may at any given moment 
be working.” + 

So much of what has been said and written concern- 
ing national prohibition is neither scientific nor accurate 
that the impartial investigator finds it difficult to form 
an estimate of the results so far achieved. This flood 
of propaganda has unfortunately been accompanied by a 
recent dearth of fair unbiased discussion so that it is 
now difficult to get information, printed within the last 
four years, that is adequate or reliable. This condition 
makes it necessary for the present volume to reprint more 
of the propaganda on both sides than would otherwise 
be done and it is done with this admonition. 

Through all of the propaganda run arguments that 
throw little light on the phases of the question in which 
the disinterested student is most concerned. Again and 
again the statements that prohibition is not being en- 
forced, that drinking has actually increased since the adop- 
tion of the Volstead law, that many of our best citizens, 
(meaning thereby people of wealth and social standing) 
violate the law regularly and without any hesitation or 
scruples, and that beer is not an intoxicating liquor, are 
made and denied, “proved” and “disproved.” In the 
maze of such statements we are apt to lose sight of the 
fact that in national prohibition our country is trying 
out one of the greatest and most far-reaching legislative 
experiments that any portion of the human race has ever 
undertaken. The adherence to preconceived notions, the 
propaganda of financially interested parties, and the low- 
grade humor of a certain class of newspapers and the- 
aters must not be permitted to cloud the vision of the 
person who is honest and unselfish in his exercise of his 
duties of citizenship. What should occupy our attention 
is a calm and careful study of the facts so far as they 
are available in an effort to determine what have been the 
results of the national prohibition act upon public health, 
poverty, crime, wages, divorce, insanity, earning-power, 


1 From American Mercury. 1: 215. February, 10924. 


PROHIBITION ix 


industrial accidents, politics, social relations, and the wel- 
fare, happiness, and contentment of the people. 

Subject to the limitations imposed by these conditions, 
the present volume attempts to deal with the results of 
national prohibition. It has been compiled in accordance 
with the plan of the Handbook Series, including de- 
bater’s brief on each side, a bibliography chiefly of the 
more recent literature on the question, and reprints of 
the best available material on both sides. 


LAMAR T. BEMAN 
March 1, 1924 


ah 


Hah 





CONTENTS 


EXPLANATORY CO INOTE dee isin eles PUAN Uae Ca Vii 
PEPRER RS re cera a ot a8 En RN nen een i Uianer bane Xill 
IST BIIOGRA BEV eo oO NDE A he eaten” x]111 


GENERAL DISCUSSION 


I PHySsIOLOGICAL RESULTS OF ALCOHOL 


BACs MEADOULTAICODOLL SLOWALt rece tcite totes are re aati mera 3 
Pirectsnorm AIcOhOLaColetriats.. wereld veiled waite Mie aac age 5 
PICOMOLP AN CAIN ULTITION MELA lise whi tare tia ieiculacleelaoe ace stetebeta ec taials a 
PVICONOMANGU HOO, Giicl Ald pasion marine crn anaih ele alia ta uaa Nene 7 
Micoholandn insanity. WHO yi Or at sa icn tic a ciesicle et gules 6 9 
PCOhnO Mana uration) OLVlAtemer carne ween wate ei tD aie a's 10 
BS PHS PER CETOLS Vat win soit wis eneTotig ale oie wale MUSPane EIA Ets CHC UeL nat me Rata En 15 
II Economic Rresutts oF ALCOHOL 

Obsolete in Modern Industry, Cherrington ............... 21 
Economic Results in Russia, Bicknell ..............0..0000- 27 
PeEde tis EXCEL US aie sorts Ri oe Ree oie Urahg oi gue er grata 


III PotitricaL RESULTs oF ALCOHOL 


RUTHER EDELIONSALVWHIECICE it cin ciara leltcrs cla ta siere stelol as aha sislate eaters 33 
INGA NeT OV SHE CWELE dics Win ale a pe etree emcee year sree 43 
EIC IME SCOL DTG al Nee nics iin whe die ln iate ee aoa eit aaigtetel ons Lacie leanne 45 


IV SocraL Resutts oF ALCOHOL 


Monarchy of All pVaCcesswonerinan’: slo. ss Gather etraleciidetes efale 53 
iwO te AMV ilalnies;) LN@ersOlli ys cte..% 4's sielesete apeiorelalsis sists ole's 54 
five: Greate estroyer,: LLODSOM aie ia aleiel eld « «wie oleanemels cielewides 50 
Perlate theuliggond L rate weLAanley)chis a ost serene cater aiat ss 73 
BIC HIS KCENDEG Ra ie etalciioleraie: seca tetahe srolaleeaic ss ¢'a; uebenmmnlanate ay alle’ s'Grs lala 74 


V Tue PROHIBITION MOVEMENT 


Fistoricalpotatements Bema iin: waited claw ateeetaeealeleinaty 85 
WitlestOneshOLsETOSTESS, | HEMAIE soe units (eed Wiasetbiarbaiale ehoteldl vies 
BTiS EAEEXCELP USK retro ek oak els levete whalste sia ere ouctetetere le teier atin a 108 


Xi CONTENTS 


VI Tue Law oF PROHIBITION 


The Eighteenth: Amendments. yiasceeaciee ae ae eee 109 
The: Volstead "ACE ips sitaleteie\ ain oo. 3h eee cieid 6 ern ate ereraa anna ate ane 109 
The: Anti-beer. Daws 0. uae Sarin Geet eee ee ee II5 
VII ENFORCEMENT OF NATIONAL PROHIBITION 

Under’ the: Spoils ‘System, Poulke: 0.00. 2-00... en ae oe 117 
Obstacles ‘to Enforcement; (Oakley ...2 fa ...2.50 0s eee 122 
The’ Power of Moneys Walnut (3. 3. 20s cece «is cen ee 129 
“Prohibition Inside Out,”) Foulke) 0.2 0}y. (220. onc eee 131 
Wet Around ‘the’ Edges,” O'Donnell 2752-2. oc eee 138 
How. Wet is Pennsylvania’... te. ccegenee oo ae ier 140 
Brief Excerpts oie eciie bes 8 sate siele ole ete lel tava. ake ne neernn 150 


AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION 


Prohibition’s , Results, | Fish. oy ts dunic os oes erate oles eee 159 
Making ‘for JLawlessness, |) Butler ac 2o itis. os ent ae 173 
Vicious Effects of ‘Enforcement, Act, Pox... sais sate 178 
Some /Evils .of/ Volsteadismm,) Staytan..ie eieagie cme ere 186 
Why: Does It: Not: Prohibit? Hubbards cscceee eee ee 199 
Prohibition Arguments Answered, Fox’). Ja... sss. seule cee 211 
A® New Principle, -Butlers 720 retin ese: oc eee ee 219 
Back:of the Dry Screenery,'Aldéniwcviusue. soon ty ee eee 221 
Declaration and Labor i/o hPa ee eae cts eet lee Seale ee 243 
Prohibition’ Battle: Line oo. Oo ee en 244 
Quebec ‘Control System)... Sek eee eect ware are cence ne 245 
Prohibition Is Now a Moral Issue, Butler ................ 246 


Brief) Excerpts’. foe cOs er oes es vane ae Gow eaieisle ae 255 


NEGATIVE DISCUSSION 


Prohibition’s (Gift, - Wheeler... 00. c0ens oe se ane een 267 
The. Worker’s Friend, Gary. is 030s. 06 Up css eee bee 268 
Prohibition Has Made Good, Hutchinson ............-eee. 271 
Gain in, Order and Health, ;Gemmill (iia as ee an eee 283 
Hour Years of Prohibition, Wheeler! 2.12. s2-=. ces 6s eee 292 
Experience with Wine and Beer, Hobart ............-00.:- 303 
Effect; on Family, Welfare, ..... i.c\U nae Bemienee eee ae 304 
WetiDrive and Labor, Jones...) acco eee ae eee 306 
Beer, ‘Wine,; and Drunkenness, Wiley iia. ¢< ues denen 310 
Is)Beer ‘Intoxicatingn jWiley) . 90:0. cass nae ee eee eee giz a 
Beer the Brutalizer, ‘Bowers ...3. 2.0. Cone eset sete aun 317 
Massachusetts’ Experience with Beer, Stoddard............ 322 
Economic ;Benehts, ‘Russell. oc. oe ea eee 332 
An Earlier View, Dunn) 323. voces obs k oddone aa ee 335 
Prohibition, and Crime, McIntosh 22. 00% (sacle ee ee 352 
BrIeLV i xCermtsy, cet wns + PAR Aho oly where alot eres <viecteale eee 362 


BRIEFS 


RESOLVED: That the Federal government should legalize 
the manufacture and sale of light wines and beer. 


INTRODUCTION 


AFFIRMATIVE 


A. Meaning of the question. 

Light wine is the fermented juice of fruit 
or vegetables which contains not more 
than 12 per cent of alcohol. 

Beer is malt liquor that contains not more 
than 4 per cent of alcohol. 

Legalize means to make lawful so far 
as the Federal government is concerned. 


L. 


a. 


The importation, manufacture, sale, 
and transportation of all liquors con- 
taining a greater percentage of alcohol 
would still be prohibited by the Fed- 
eral government. 

Any state could still prohibit within 
its borders the manufacture and sale 
of light wines and beer. 

The liquor laws and regulations of 
the different states would therefore 
differ to conform with the local pub- 
lic opinion. 


B. The method of legalizing, that is, the legis- 
lative action necessary to accomplish this 
change in the laws, is not an issue in this 


debate. 
C 


Modification of the Volstead Act would 
be the first step. 


X1v 


lf 


SELECTED TAR RIGEES 


If the Supreme Court should declare such 
a law to be in violation to the Eighteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution, then it 
would be necessary to adopt another 
amendment to modify the Eighteenth 
Amendment. 


Some modification of the Volstead Act is necessary. 


A. The Volstead Act is not being generally 
obeyed. 


There is wholesale smuggling of liquor 

into the United States. , 

a. From the West Indies a large fleet 
of boats is constantly bringing it to 
New York, New Jersey, Florida, and 
other places. 

b. From Canada liquor is constantly 
smuggled across the border, particu- 
larly into Michigan and New York 
states. 

Whisky and distilled spirits are being 

made and sold in utter violation of the 

Volstead Act in all parts of the country. 

a. Illicit stills are being discovered and 
confiscated continually in every state 
and in almost every county in the 
whole country. 

b. Persons intoxicated by drinking boot- 
leg whisky are being arrested and 
brought before the petty courts of 
every city and town. 

c. Persons are continually being ar- 
rested and charged with driving while 
intoxicated. 

More wine is now being made and con- 

sumed than ever before in our history. 

a. Wine grapes are now in greater de- 
mand than ever before. 


PROHIBITION XV 


There is now being sold throughout 
the country in gallon tins specially 
prepared grape pulp, so put up that 
by merely adding water and letting 
it stand any kind of wine may be 
made. 

Many saloon keepers are now making 
many other sources and materials. 


4. Quantities of beer are now being made 
in violation of the Volstead Act. 


a. 


Some breweries, supposed to be mak- 
ing near beer, are making real beer 
at least a part of the time. 

The making of home brew is now 
a very general practice. 

Many saloonkeepers are now making 
their own beer. 


5. It is now a matter of general knowledge 
that the Volstead Act is openly and notort- 
ously violated. 


ack 


Stores: in every city and town sell 
and exhibit for sale materials in 
small quantities and compete outfits 
that can only be used for making 
alcoholic liquors which can only be 
made in violation of the law. 

The Volstead law is now being vio- 
lated by the more prominent and 
wealthy people. 


B. The violations of the Volstead Act are in- 
creasing as the years go by. 
1. Drunkenness has been constantly increas- 
ing since 1920. 


a. 


b. 


This is shown by the number of ar- 
rests for intoxication. 

It is also shown by the number of 
commitments. 


Xvi 


SELECTED “ARTACLES 


2. The government is utterly unable to cope 
with the situation. 


a. 


Many of the states have tried to pass 
the buck to the Federal government, 
asking it to enforce the Volstead Act 
because it is a Federal law, to stop 
smuggling, to change its system of 
permits,) ete. 

The Federal government has passed 
the buck back to the states, asking 
them to enforce the law within their 
borders, saying that the Federal en- 
forcement officers were few in num- 
ber and that every state officer has 
taken an oath to support and enforce 
the Constitution of the United States. 


C. The Volstead Act never can be really enforced. 
1. Prohibition has never yet been enforced 
anywhere on this earth. 


a. There is considerable drinking among 
the Mohammedan people whose re- 
ligion includes prohibition of all al- 
coholic liquors. 

b. There was general violation of state- 
wide prohibition in the states that had 
adopted it. 

c. Local option was never fully enforced. 

2. Pubic sentiment does not support the Vol- 
stead Act. 

a. In many parts of the country the 


great majority of the people are very 
strongly against it. 

In all parts of the country, in every 
city and village, there is at least a 
good sized minority that is strongly 
and bitterly opposed to the Volstead 
law, and a great many of these peo- 


PROHIBITION xvii 


ple are determined to violate the law 
at every possible opportunity. 

The poll conducted by the Literary 
Digest in 1922 showed unmistakably 
that the great majority of the Ameri- 
can people are against the Volstead 
law. (Literary Digest, July 15 to 
Sept. 9, 1922) 


The reasons why the law is now so gen- 
erally disobeyed and disrespected are per- 
manent and lasting. 


a. 


b. 


It infringes personal liberty. 

It seeks by legislation to change the 
habits and private customs of people. 
The coast and frontier lines of the 
United States are over thirteen thou- 
sand miles in length. So long as there 
is a demand for liquor, there will be 
smuggling. 


It is a very easy matter to make alcoholic 
liquors. 


war 


Wine makes itself: All that is to be 
done is to press out fruit juice and 
let it stand. 

Distillation is an easy matter: Any 
fifteen year old child can distill water 
with a tea kettle and a garden hose. 
With the implements and ingredients 
now on sale in almost every city and 
village in the country, anybody can 
make fairly good and palatable beer. 


Governor Pinchot found that he could not 
make Pennsylvania dry. 


as 


Governor Pinchot is a man of un- 
questioned integrity. 

He is a man of unusual ability. 
While a candidate for governor, he 


XVill 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


promised the voters if elected he 
would close all the saloons and make 
Pennsylvania actually dry. 

d. After his election he honestly tried to 
fulfil this promise, but found that it 
could not be done. 

e. Pennsylvania is not yet dry. 

6. The temptation of the enforcement offi- 
cers to be dishonest is too great. 

a. Enforcement officers are men of little 
means. 

b. <A bribe of $5,000 or $10,000 dollars 
means little to a successful bootlegger, 
but it would be a tremendous tempta- 
tion to any enforcement officer. 


The wholesale non-enforcement of the Vol- 

stead law is a very serious evil and a national 

peril. 

1. The liquor traffic is now entirely unregu- 
lated by law. 

a. Large quantities of all kinds of liquor 
are now being made, smuggled, trans- 
ported, and sold by the worst ele- 
ments of society. 

b. There is no government inspection of 
manufacture to guarantee purity or 
cleanliness. 

(1) Most of the liquor now sold is 
made by ignorant and vicious 
people in basements, attics, 
barns, and in the back hills, 
much of it at night. 

(2) Much poison liquor has been 
made and sold, and hundreds 
of deaths and cases of blind- 
ness have resulted. 

c. There are now no effective restric- 


3. 


PROHIBITION xix 


tions on the time or place where 

liquor is sold, or the parties who may 

sell it. 

The general disregard and violation of the 

Volstead Act is unquestionably developing 

such a feeling of disrespect for all law 

as is a serious danger to our institutions. 

a. Crime has been rapidly increasing in 
spite of the fact that the prohibition- 
ists were emphatic in their claims 
that prohibition would bring about a 
great reduction in crime. 

b. A spirit of lawlessness and contempt 
for all law has been abroad in our 
country since the adoption of the Vol- 
stead Act, and is steadily growing 
worse. 

(1) President Angell of Yale Uni- 
versity in his baccalaureate ad- 
dress in June, 1922 said, “The 
violation of law has never been 
so general nor so widely con- 
doned as at present.” 

(2) President Butler of Columbia 
University in an address before 
the Ohio State Bar Association 
on January 26, 1923 made an 
even more emphatic statement, 
and named the Volstead Act as 
a leading cause. 

(3) John H. Clarke, former Justice 
of the United States Supreme 
Court, John Koren, and many 
other men of authority have 
made similar statements. 

The drinking habits of many people have 

been made worse. 


4. 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


A considerable number of people who 
formerly drank only light wines and 
beer now use the stronger drinks be- 
cause of the difficulty in getting good 
beer or high grade wines as their 
bulk makes it more difficult to smug- 
gle, transport, and retail them. 

Whisky drinking has become a so- 
cial fad among all but the poorer 
people, and is now done in a spirit 
of bravado. | 


The total amount paid for liquors is 
greater now than ever before. 


a. 


The conservative estimate of the At- 
torney General’s office is that there 
is now consumed 38 per cent of the 
amount of liquor used before the 
adoption of the Volstead Act, while 
everybody knows that the price now 
paid for liquors is from five to ten 
times greater than it formerly was. 
The total amount paid for liquor 
must, therefore, be from 50 to 200 
per cent more than it was before the 
adoption of national prohibition. 


The efforts to enforce the Volstead Act have 
brought about a condition of social warfare, 
that in many sections of the country approaches 
open rebellion. 

In some cases ruthless methods have been 
employed in the effort to enforce the law. 


Abe 


a. 


Private homes have been entered and 
searched without a search warrant or 
any legal right to do so. 
Automobiles and even funeral pro- 
cessions have been held up and 
searched on the highways. 


PROHIBITION ol 


Vicious criminals have plied their trade 
as bootleggers with a persistent determina- 
tion and often by force of arms. 

a. Many enforcement officers and some 
bootleggers have been killed. 

b. A great many automobiles and trucks 
have been confiscated and sold by the 
government. 

c. Many buildings have been “pad- 
locked.” 

Among the working class and the poorer 

people generally there is a wide-spread 

feeling that they have been discriminated 
against. 

a. They are denied their beer while peo- 
ple of larger incomes or greater 
wealth continue to enjoy their usual 
liquor. 

b. The saloon was the poor man’s club. 
It furnished the only recreation for . 
millions of honest laboring men. It 
has been destroyed and no substitute 
has been provided, while the rich have 
their clubs and their recreation the 
same as before the adoption of pro- 
hibition. 


II. It would be wise and desirable for the Federal gov- 
ernment to legalize the manufacture and sale of 
light wines and beer. 

A. Light wines and beer are not injurious physi- 
cally or morally. 


Ue 


Alcohol in small quantities is not physi- 
cally harmful. 


a. Many authorities say that alcohol in 


small quantities serves as a food. 
Many of the best people have habitually 
used wine and beer without any bad effect. 


XXil 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


a. This has been true of many of our 
ablest clergymen. 

b. Most of the world’s great statesmen 
have used wine and some have used 
beer. 

c. Many of the famous writers, schol- 
ars, scientists, and professional men 
have used these liquors moderately all 
their lives. 

d. A large part of) the rank andilevot 
mankind have been moderate users of 
these liquors without harmful result. 

3. Whole nations have used wine and beer 
quite freely for centuries without harmful 
results. 

a. Everybody knows the extent to which 
the German people have used beer. 

b. °. France, ‘Belsiim Italy, Greecevabal- 
garia, and many other nations have 
used wine freely for many genera- 
tions. 

4. The use of wine is sanctioned by the Bible. 
a. Christ Himself made wine by turning 

water into wine. 

b. He commended and sanctioned its use. 

c. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews have 
all used wine for sacramental pur- 
poses for years. 

5. Many patent or proprietory medicines, 
used for years and found by many peo- 
ple to be helpful, are now sanctioned by 
the law although they contain a larger per- 
centage of alcohol than do light wines or 
beer. . 

Legalizing the manufacture and sale of light 

wines and beer will decrease the total con- 

sumption of alcohol. 


PROHIBITION Xxill 


Many people are now using bootleg whisky 
and distilled spirits which contain a far 
greater percentage of alcohol because 
these liquors are easy to obtain. 


a. Liquors of smaller bulk and which 
keep better are the ones that are 
smuggled into the country and are 
transported across the country. 

b. Good palatable beer is harder to 
make, keep, transport, and therefore 
it is difficult to get. 

If light wines and good beer could be law- 

fully bought, a great many people who 

now use the distilled spirits would stop 
doing so and use the milder ones. 


Legalizing the manufacture and sale of light 
wines and beer will remedy the existing evils 
which the Volstead Act has produced. 


Ts 


It will restore respect for law. 
a. It will remove the bitter opposition to 
the law by removing the cause. 


It will re-establish domestic tranquility. 


It will make the liquor laws enforcible. 
a. They will have public sentiment back 
of them. 


It would be financially advantageous to the 
government to legalize the manufacture and 
sale of light wines and beer. 


LT, 


It would save to the government the cost 

of its present efforts to enforce the law. 

It will bring in several hundred millions 

of dollars in taxes. 

Omeeliahds: Deen cesiiinatccatoit aupeenetax 
alone can be made to yield $400,000,- 
OOOra: year. 


XXIV 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


III. Legalizing the manufacture and sale of light wines 
and beer is a practical remedy. 


A. It would make it possible for the government 
to regulate the liquor traffic. 


Le 


as 


Liquors made and sold unlawfully can- 
not successfully compete with those law- 
fully made. 

a. Liquors made lawfully are made on 
a large scale and therefore cheaper, 
while those made unlawfully and sur- 
reptitiously must be made on a small 
scale. 

b. People would always prefer the 
standard brands because of their 
purity. 

Unlawfully made liquors would soon al- 

most entirely disappear. 


B. Under lawful regulations the worst evils of 
the liquor traffic are eliminated. 


I. 


Oo 


Government inspection of manufacture 
and a government seal or stamp on every 
package guarantees purity and absolutely 
prevents the sale of poison liquors. 

The license system prevents vicious or 
undesirable individuals from entering the 
business. 

The hours of sale, the persons who can 
buy it, the places where it may be sold, 
and other conditions of sale are regulated 
by law so as to eliminate all abuses. 


C. It does not necessarily mean the return of the 
saloon. 


Ls 


IS 


The Federal government would only pro- 
hibit the manufacture, sale, importation, 
and transportation of the stronger liquors. 
This would leave to the separate states 
home rule in regard to wines and beer. 


D. 


PROHIBITION XXV 


a. Any state could prevent the return 
of the saloon if it cared to do so. 

b. Any state could still prohibit the 
manufacture and sale of wines and 
beer within its own confines if it 
wanted to do so. 


The legalizing of the manufacture and sale 
of light wines and beer is endorsed as the best 
remedy for the present situation by many of 
the best minds. 


1s 


Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Co- 
lumbia University. 

John W. Weeks, Secretary of War. 
Senator Edward I. Edwards of New 
Jersey. 

G. K. Chesterton, the English writer. 
Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. 
Senator James Cousens of Michigan who 
was formerly the chief of police in Detroit. 
Senator Walter E. Edge of New Jersey. 
Fabian Franklin, the well-known jour- 
nalist. 

ExUstens Gt ON CW OLR attorney. 
Hudson Maxim, author and inventor. 

E. C. Stokes, ex-governor of New Jersey. 


NEGATIVE 


I. Any modification of the present liquor laws is 
entirely unnecessary. 

The Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amend- 

ment were regularly adopted and are the will 

of the great majority of American people. 


A. 


rT. 


The struggle for prohibition has gone on 
for more than a hundred years. 

Prohibition had been established by state 
or local action over most of the country 


XXVI 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


before the Eighteenth Amendment was 

ratified. 

a. Thirty-three states had adopted state- 
wide prohibition. 

b. 95.4 per cent of the area of the coun- 
try was dry. 

c. 68.3 per cent of the population lived 
in dry territory. 

More than two-thirds of each house of 

Congress voted to propose the Eighteenth 

Amendment. 

A majority of the members in each house 

of the legislatures of forty-six states voted 

to ratify it. 

a. Rhode Island and Connecticut are 
the only states that did not ratify it. 

b. This is a larger number and a larger 
proportion of the states than ratified 
any of the other amendments to the 
Constitution. 

The Volstead Act was passed by each 

house of Congress by a large majority, 

and again over President Wilson’s veto 

by a more than two-thirds vote. 

Both the Eighteenth Amendment and the 

Volstead Act have been sustained by the 

Supreme Court of the United States. (253 

Oey se3) 

In several of the states a wine and beer 

proposition was submitted to the voters 

shortly after prohibition had gone into 

effect, as the first counter attack of the 

liquor interests, and it was defeated de- 

cisively. 

a. In Colorado, Oregon, and Washing- 
ton prohibition went into effect Janu- 
ary 1, 1916. Later in the same year 


PROHIBITION XXVil 


a wine and beer proposition was de- 
feated in each of them, in Colorado 
by eighty-five thousand votes, in Ore- 
gon by fifty-four thousand votes, and 
in Washington by one hundred and 
forty-seven thousand. 

In Michigan prohibition went into 
effect May 1, 1918 and on April 7, 
I9QIg a wine and beer amendment was 
defeated by about two hundred and 
eight thousand votes. 

Prohibition became effective in Ohio 
on May 27, 1919, and in November 
of that year an amendment to legalize 
AvABeDal aceiin beer “Was cdeleated by 
twenty-nine thousand votes. In 1922 
a light wine and beer proposition was 
defeated by two hundred and nine 
thousand votes. 


B. The adoption of national prohibition was due 
to the efforts of the best of our people. 

Among the opponents of prohibition have 

been the undesirable elements of our peo- 


i 


ple. 


a. 


b. 


Cr 


Those willing to poison their neigh- 
bors if they could make money out 
of it. 

The alcohol addicts, many of them 
worthless drunkards. 

Corrupt and cowardly politicians. 


The advocates of prohibition were un- 
selfish and high-minded people. 


a. 


b. 


In each city and town the prohibition 
leaders were the church-goers. 

The leaders of the movement were 
not seeking gain for themselves, but 
many have suffered losses and given 


XXVILI 


SELECTED RAK-RIGLES 


of their time and money for the gen- 
eral good. 


C. National prohibition has not yet been fairly 


tried. 


1. It has not been honestly enforced. 


«ts 


io) 


The Federal government has not gone 
about prohibition enforcement in good 
faith. 

(1) The entire enforcement service 
has been made political spoils 
from the start. 

(2) Many incompetent and dishonest 
men have been appointed to im- 
portant positions in the service. 

(3) The Federal government could 
stop the wholesale smuggling of 
liquor into the country and the 
display and sale of materials 
and devices for making liquor. 

Many of the states have failed to 

make an honest effort to enforce the 


ean 


Many city and local officials have 
failed to do their sworn duty in en- 
forcing the law. 

(1) The cleaning up of Chicago in 
the fall of 1923 and of Phila- 
delphia in January of 1924 
shows what local officials can 
do if they make any honest 
effort. 


2. It will take time to give national prohibi- 
tion a fair trial. 


ae 


b. 


The law will be better enforced as 
time goes on. 

Enforcement will be easier in the 
next generation. 


C; 


PROHIBITION XXiX 


In Maine and Kansas the second 
generation under prohibition were 
strongly in favor of the law. 


To legalize the manufacture and sale of 
wines and beer would for all practical pur- 
poses amount to the abandonment of na- 
tional prohibition before it has had an 
opportunity to prove its full value. 


a. 


Before the adoption of prohibition 
beer alone made up more than 90 
per cent of the liquor traffic. 

Wine made up more than 2 per cent 
of the traffic. 

If we legalize 93 per cent of the traf- 
fic, prohibition is at an end. 


D. National prohibition has already met with a 
large measure of success. 

It has very greatly decreased the total 

consumption of alcohol. 


I 


a. 


No reliable authority places the pres- 
ent consumption of alcohol at more 
than one-fifth of what it was before 
the adoption of the Volstead Act. 
Arrests for intoxication are way be- 
low what they were formerly. 

Neal Institutes and other drink cures 
have practically all gone out of 
business. 


The crimes due to alcohol have very 
greatly decreased. 


a. 


b. 


Cases of desertion, non-support, etc. 
have decreased all over the country. 
Arrests for drunkenness, assault, 
disorderly conduct, destruction of 
property, etc. have greatly decreased. 
The prison population has not kept 
pace with the growth of the total 


XXX 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


population, but has actually decreased. 
Many jails and workhouses have 
been empty or almost empty. 

These results have been accomplished 
when there was every reason to ex- 
pect a large increase in crime, as a 
result of the war. 


3. Poverty has been decreased. 


d. 


The Boston Family Welfare Society 
has published figures covering many 
cities that show a decrease of 74 per 
cent between 1917 and 1922 in the 
cases caused by drink that come to 
charity organizations. 


4. Public health has been greatly improved. 


a. 


There has been a great reduction in 
the death rate. 


5. he working class has been especially bene- 
fited. 


da. 


Ce 


d. 


Cs 


More of them now own their own 
homes. 

More now own an automobile. 
Better wages are being paid. 

More workmen now have a savings 
account. 

Union Labor Banks began after pro- 
hibition was adopted. 


6. Industry has profited greatly. 


a. 


Labor is now more efficient. 

(1) There is now greater produc- 
tion per man. 

(2) There is now less irregularity, 
especially on Mondays. 

(3) There are now fewer accidents. 


7. Prohibition has encouraged and increased 
savings. 


a. 


Official figures show that the total 


PROHIBITION eae 


money deposited in banks has very 
greatly increased. 
Politics has been purified and elevated. 
a. Organized liquor interests no longer 
dominate elections through their con- 
trol of the saloons which organize 
the worst elements of society into a 
force to control elections. 
All this has already been accomplished 
although everybody knows that the best 
results of prohibition cannot become ap- 
parent until after one or two generations. 
a. Then will be noticed a decrease in 
degeneration, including feeble-mind- 
edness, blindness, insanity, epilepsy, 
CLC, 


There is no need for repeal or modification 
on the ground that prohibition infringes or 
limits personal liberty. 


i 


Personal liberty is the freedom given a 

person by his government. 

a. Doing an act prohibited by the gov- 
ernment is not the exercise of per- 
sonal liberty, it is crime. 

b. There is no such thing as an inalien- 
able right. 

c. Persons have lawfully only such lib- 
erty as their government gives them, 
and only criminals take or exercise 
greater rights or liberty. 

Ever since the dawn of civilization per- 

sonal liberty has been restricted in many 

ways in every civilized country. 

a. The Ten Commandments are a restric- 
tion of personal liberty. 

b. The laws against murder, treason, 
arson, burglary, robbery, and in fact 


XXXIi 


’ 


SUE CE DAR De tks 


all criminal laws, limit, restrict, in- 
fringe, and interfere with personal 
liberty. 

When the government feels that personal 

liberty and social welfare conflict, it is 

its duty so to restrict and limit the former 
as to secure and advance the latter. 

a. It is an old maxim of the law that 
“Personal liberty ends where public 
injury begins.” 

b. Another old maxim of the law is ‘Sic 
utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.” 
The liberty of any person to poison his 
neighbors, or even to poison himself and 
thus serve to handicap posterity, is anti- 
social and thoroughly undesirable, and 
therefore, must be restrained and pro- 

hibited by organized society. 


Imperfect enforcement or local non-enforce- 
ment is not a valid objection to prohibition. 


if: 
de 


It is merely an argument for enforcement. 
New and drastic laws are better enforced 
after the lapse of a few years. 

The Eighteenth Amendment has _ been 
more effectively enforced than has the 
Fifteenth, which was supposed to give the 
colored people the right to vote. 


4. The Volstead Act has been as well, and in 


some cases better, enforced than have 

other important laws. 

a. The laws against trusts, monopolies, 
and profiteering. 

... Lheyspure tood laws. 

¢..) [The ceneral property atax, laweman 
many states. 

The Volstead Act is now as well enforced 

as license or local option laws ever were. 


PROHIBITION XXXili 


Much less harm is done to society now 
by the bootlegger or by poison booze than 
was formerly done by the licensed liquor 
traffic, or would be done by legalizing 
the manufacture and sale of wines and 
beer. 

a. Avowed criminals can do much less 
harm to society than can the liquor 
traffic when clothed by the law with 
a semblance of respectability. 

Much less alcohol is now consumed. 

c. Fewer boys and young men are now 
being lured into the drink habit by 
the snares of the grill room and the 
open saloon. 

Non-enforcement has been largely due to 

temporary causes. 

a. The lack of good faith by high offi- 
cials. 

b. The placing the Federal enforcement 
service under the spoils system. 

c. The presence in society of old soaks, 
whose absence will purify the next 
generation. 

There is no danger to our institutions in 

non-enforcement. 

a. There is nothing at all new about 
the liquor traffic violating the law. 

b. No law has ever been obeyed 100 
Deracent. 

(1) There have been laws against 
murder for several thousand 
years, and murders are of fre- 
quent occurence, and nobody 
sees in them any danger to our 
institutions. 

Most of the statements about the amount 


XXXIV 


SELECTEDSARDIGCEES 


of liquor now consumed are ridiculous 
exagegcrations. 


a. 


It has been frequently said that pro- 
hibition has made this a country of 
home-brewers, but Hugh F. Fox, Sec- 
retary of the U.5) Brewers scocia- 
tion, and one of the best informed 
men on this point in America, has 
said in a letter dated January 28, 
1924, ‘““The home-brew business is 
negligible. Home-brews are trouble- 
some and unsatisfactory.” 

It has frequently been claimed that 
vast amounts of liquor are being 
smuggled into the country, but Mr. 
Haynes, the Prohibition Commis- 
sioner says in his book, Prohibition 
Inside Out, p. 15, that it 1s almost 
impossible now to buy good whisky, 
and) that moresthan, 05) pemecc nim a 
the whisky now consumed is adulter- 
ated moonshine. 


II. It would be very unwise for the Federal govern- 
ment to legalize the manufacture and sale of wines 
and beer. 


A. It would not improve present conditions. 
The liquor traffic would not then obey 
the law. 


Ie 


da. 


b. 


It has never obeyed the law. 

The criminal classes would still make, 
smuggle, and sell the stronger liquors. 
If the saloon did not return, there 
would be much more bootlegging than 
now because it would be easier to get 
the supply. 


The consumption of alcohol would be very 
greatly increased. 


PROHIBITION XXXV 


a. Before the adoption of prohibition 


much more alcohol was consumed in 
the form of beer than in the distilled 
spirits. 


It would be unjust to the thirty-three states 


that 


had adopted prohibition by state action 


before the Eighteenth Amendment was rati- 


fied. 
1 


3: 


More than two-thirds of the states are 
in this class. 

Liquor could easily be smuggled across 
state lines. 

Commerce between states is not under 
state control. 


Most of the ills from which the human race 
suffers are due to alcoholic liquors. 


ih 


Scientific research has shown that alcohol 

is a narcotic habit-forming poison. 

a. Its use caused many thousand deaths 
a year. 

b. Its use makes a person more suscept- 
ible to disease and less able to resist. 

c. About one-quarter of the insanity is 
due to alcohol. 

d. It causes feeble-mindedness, blind- 
ness, epilepsy, insanity, and other 
forms of degeneracy among the de- 
scendants of users. 


Alcohol lowers the standard of character 

and public morals. 

a. It caused a large part of all the petty 
eiiies 

b. It created a considerable part of all 
the pauperism. : 

c. It was the leading cause of commer- 
cialized vice. 


XXXVv1 


SHLD EGTEDRARTICIUES 


d. It was responsible for a large part 
of the divorces and desertions. 
e. It caused most of the child misery. 
f. It corrupted government, interfered 
with the administration of justice, 
and made cowards of men in public 
life. 
3. It was a staggering economic burden to 
society. 
a. More than $2,000,000,000 a year was 
spent for alcoholic liquors in the 
United States before the adoption of 
prohibition. 
b. The indirect cost to society was 
much greater. 
“Light” wines and “wholesome” beer are 
neither food nor medicine, but habit-forming 
poison. 
1, “Light” wine contains from 7 to 15 per 
cent of alcohol. 
2. “Wholesome” beer contains from 4 to 8 
per cent of alcohol and other poisons. 
a. It is a well-known fact that most 
drunkards begin by drinking beer. 
3. The statistics compiled by life insurance 
companies show beyond any doubt that 
even moderate drinkers of wine and beer 
die earlier than total abstainers. 
The modern world demands sober, healthy 
men and women. 
1. Modern industry demands clear minds and 
steady hands. 
a. Industrial accidents must be reduced. 


b. Efficiency and regularity in industry 
must be attained. 


PROHIBITION XXXVIi 


c. Modern industry is so highly spe- 
cialized, so organized and co-ordi- 
nated, that drinking men are out of 
place in it. 

International supremacy will go to a sober 

nation. 

a. In the keen rivalry of the nations of 
today supremacy must go to the one 
that is most efficient. 

b. Sobriety increases the man-power of 
a nation. 

The employee class needs prohibition to 

aid it in its class struggle. 

a. In times of strikes and other labor 
troubles, clear minds and steady de- 
termination are needed for success. 

b. Labor can permanently secure higher 
wages only by being more efficient. 

To secure clean honest politics and get our 
best men and women into public life, it 
is necessary that neither the saloon nor 
the liquor traffic should ever be permitted 
to return, or be recognized or counte- 
nanced by law. 

a. It was the liquor traffic and the saloon 
that corrupted and debauched Ameri- 
can politics and kept our best people 
entirely out of public life. 

b. It was in 1916 that Harry M. Daugh- 
erty, afterwards Attorney General of 
the United States, said, “We will 
never again have a fair square elec- 
tion in the state of Ohio until we put 
the liquor interest, as an interest, out 
of politics, and I am convinced we can 
only put it out of politics by putting 
it out of business.” 


XXXVill 


SEL EGTEDSARDICUES 


III. It is impracticable for the Federal government now 
to legalize the manufacture and sale of wine and 
beer. 


a 


This system has failed wherever it has been 
tried. 


1, 


Sere ge 


6. 


It was tried in Massachusetts from 1870 

to 1873. 

Iowa tried it in 1858. 

Georgia tried it from 1908 to I9QI5. 

It was also tried in the territory of Hawaii. 

In all four of these places it was a total 

failure. 

a. It meant the return of the saloon with 
all its evils. 

b. It produced increased drunkenness. 

c. It gave the liquor traffic an organiza- 
tion among the vicious elements of 
society with which it could control 
men in public life and fight its way 
back to control legislation. 

Chief Justice Taft has declared the plan 

unenforcible. 


It is an illogical backward step. 


Ty 


There is no logical reason why the gov- 
ernment should legalize the manufacture 
and sale of a liquor that contains from 

7 to 15 per cent of alcohol and not legalize 

the manufacture and sale of one that con- 

tains from 15 to 25 per cent. 

It would be a fatal retreat. 

a. It would rob the whole temperance 
movement in America of its mo- 
mentum. 

b. It would destroy national prohibition 
before it has had a fair trial. 

Wine and beer will not drive out or even 

decrease the sale of the stronger drinks. 


4. 


a. 


b. 


PROHIBITION XXXIX 


It has always been true that the more 
beer sold and consumed, the more 
whisky sold and used. 

The two have always gone together. 


If adopted, it would simply re-open the 
whole prohibition question. 


a. 


The Anti-Saloon League would be- 
gin its fight for national prohibition 
all over again. 

Since the states would still be able 
to prohibit the manufacture of wine 
and beer, in each of them the whole 
question would be fought out again. 


The legalizing of the manufacture and sale 
of wine and beer would be only the entering 
wedge for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment and the return of the saloon. 

The liquor interests have always acted as 
a unit in fighting all temperance and pro- 
hibition legislation. 


Ie 


a. 


b. 


A hundred years ago they fought and 
ridiculed the Temperance Societies. 
Iifty years ago they fought the brave 
and noble women who organized 
the Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union. 

For the last thirty years the liquor 
interests have fought the Anti-Saloon 
League. 

At every turn and corner the liquor 
interests fought the adoption of na- 
tional prohibition. 


The war between moral righteousness and 
the liquor interests is still going on. 


a. 


The “light” wine and “wholesome” 
beer drive is only one little skirmish 
under a heavy smoke screen in the 


xl 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


hundred years’ war against the poison 
peddlers. 

b. If the liquor interests win, they will 
be encouraged, move forward to an’ 
advanced position, and demand the 
return of the saloon. 


It would impair the dignity of the government 
and the sanctity of the law. 


1 


The chief argument against national pro- 
hibition being non-enforcement, its modi- 
fication by legalizing wine and beer would 
be an admission of the weakness and im- 
potence of the Federal government and 
of the state governments. 

The dignity of the relations of the gov- 
ernment and the law to private citizens 
and to posterity forbids the legalizing or 
countenancing of the traffic in habit- 
forming poisons. 

There must be no official compromise, no 
public armistice, between organized so- 
ciety and the profiteers who make money 
out of vice and crime. 

It has always been impossible to regulate 
the liquor traffic, and therefore it must be 


destroyed. 
a. All attempts at legal regulation have 
failed. 


b. Lloyd George has said that nothing 
but root and branch methods will be 
of the slightest avail in dealing with 
the liquor traffic. 


Even if some modification of our present laws 
were necessary or desirable, (and we believe 
it is not), there are better methods to bring 
it about than the legalizing of the manufac- 
ture and sale of wine and beer. 


PROHIBITION xii 


It would be far better to issue a permit 

to any law abiding person to make at 

home for his own family use a_ small 

quantity of wine or beer. 

a. This plan would eliminate the sale or 
traffic in intoxicating liquors. 

b. It would not greatly increase the con- 
sumption of alcohol. 

ce. It would entirely eliminate the cor- 
rupting and sinful element of private 
profit. 

(1) Private profit has always been 
the teeth of the liquor wolf. 

d. It would have all the so-called bene- 
fits without the inevitable and enor- 
mous harm that would follow the 
legalizing of the manufacture and 
sale of wine and beer. 

(1) It would make it possible for 
law-abiding people to have rea- 
sonable quantities of the milder 
liquors. 

(2) It would not put the liquor traf- 
fic back into politics. 

(3) It would not permit the whole- 
sale manufacture of beer. 


F. Public sentiment is against legalizing the manu- 
facture and sale of wine and beer, or tem- 
porizing further with the liquor evil. 


Ie 


This is clearly shown by the record- 
making ratification of the Eighteenth 
Amendment. 

Most of the states and cities that have 
expressed themselves since the adoption 
of the Volstead Act have been favorable 
to its strict enforcement. 


xlti 


Se Gnu yer crab ee 


The best of the newspapers and _ periodi- 

cals support this policy. 

The best minds of the country are op- 

posed to any modification and are in favor 

of strict enforcement. 

a. This is clearly shown by the facts 
and opinions collected by the Manu- 
facturers’ Record and published in 
their pamphlet called the “Prohibition 
Question.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


An asterisk (*) preceding a reference indicates that the entire article 
or a part of it has been reprinted in this volume. A dagger (7) is used 
to mark a few of the best of the other references. 


BriEFS, BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND DEBATES 


Cherrington, Ernest H. Anti-Saloon league year book, 
1922. Anti-Saloon League of America. 1923. 
p. 265-72. A partial bibliography of present day literature 

on the alcohol question. 

Fisher, Irving and Fisk, Eugene L. How to live. Funk 
and Wagnalls. 1916. 
p. 244-9. References. 

}Index-catalogue of the library of the Surgeon General’s 
office U.S. Army. 3d series. 1918. 
Vol. 1. p. 243-79. Alcohol and alcoholism. An extensive and 

carefully classified bibliography. 

itty Oi. COneresss, List, ofp recent references: on pro- 
hibition. 9p. typewritten. April 6, 1921. 

Library of Congress. List of references on the Eigh- 
teenth amendment and its enforcement. gp. type- 
written. Ag. 19, 1920. 


National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Cata- 
logue of temperance literature and organization sup- 
plies. 64p. 1923. 

Phelps, Edith M. and Johnsen, Julia E., eds. University 


debaters’ annual, 1922-1923. H. W. Wilson Co. 1923. 


p. 191-235. Resolved: that the Federal government should 
legalize the manufacture and sale of light wines and _ beer. 
Briefs, bibliography, and stenographic report of the speeches of 
the debate between the University of Washington and the Uni- 
versity of Oregon, March 1, 1923. 


Reference Shelf. Vol. 1; No. 11. JI) °23. Repeal of the 
prohibition amendment: a debate between Ransom 
H. Gillett and John H. Holmes. 47p. 


xliv SHUECLEDERARLIGLES 


Starling, Ernest H. The action of alcohol on man. 
Longmans, Green, & Co. 1923. 
p. 279-86. Bibliography. 


GENERAL REFERENCES 
Books AND PAMPHLETS 


Allbutt, Clifford, and Rolleston, Humphrey D., eds. A 
system of medicine. Macmillan. 1909. 
Vol. II. Part I. p. 901-37. Alcoholism. 

Aschaffenburg, Gustav. Crime and its repression. Trans. 
by Adalbert Albracht. p. 69-88. Little, Brown. 1913. 


Blakemore, Arthur W. National prohibition, the Vol- 
stead act annotated, and digest of national and 
state prohibition decisions. Mathew Bender & Co. 
1923. 

Boies, Henry M. Prisoners and paupers. Putnam. 1893. 
p. 137-69. Intemperance as a cause. 

Bryce, Alexander. Laws of life and health. Lippincott. 
IQI2. 

Chicago, Vice Commission of. The social evil in Chi- 
cago. IQITI. 

p. 119-40. The social evil and the saloon. 

Chicago Commission on the Liquor Problem. Prelimi- 
nary report to the mayor and aldermen of the city 
of Chicago. 1916. 

+ Committee of Fifty. Economic aspects of the liquor 
problem. Houghton. 1899. 

t Committee of Fifty. Liquor problem: a summary of 
the investigations conducted by the Committee of 
fifty, 1893-1903. Houghton. 1905. 

+ Committee of Fifty. Liquor problem in its legislative 
aspects. Houghton. 1897. 

~t Committee of Fifty. Physiological aspects of the liq- 
uor problem. Houghton. 1903. 


+ Committee of Fifty. Substitutes for the saloon. 
Houghton. root. 


PROHIBITION xlv 


Congressional Record. 52: 495-616. D. 22, ’14. Prohi- 
bition debate in the House of representatives on the 
Hobson resolution. 

Daugherty, Harry M. Report concerning prohibition liti- 
gation. I2p. Government Printing Office. 1923. 

Dodge, Raymond and Benedict, Francis G. Psychological 
effects of alcohol: an experimental investigation of the 
effects of moderate doses of ethyl alcohol on a related 
group of neuro-muscular processes in man. Car- 
negie Institute of Washington. 1915. 

{+ Edmonds, Richard H. The prohibition question viewed 
from the economic and moral standpoint: views of 
hundreds of leading men in affairs. 83p. Manufac- 
fHiretsmNecordububs,Co. 1022: 

Elderton, E. M. and Pearson, K. A first study of the 
influence of parental alcoholism on the physique and 
ability of the offspring. Francis Galton Eugenics 
Laboratory Memoirs No. 10. London. IgIo. 

Forel, August. Hygiene of nerves and mind in health 
and disease. Trans. by Austin Aikins. John Murray. 
London. 1907. 

Haynes, Roy A. Prohibition inside out. Doubleday, 
Page. 1923. 

Hollander, Bernard. The psychology of misconduct, 
vice, and crime. Geo. Allen & Unwin. London. 1922. 
p. 49-65. ‘The alcoholic. 

Horsley, Sir Victor, and Sturge, Mary G. Alcohol and 
the human body. Macmillan. 1908. 

Johnson, William E. Federal government and the lig- 
uor traffic. American Issue Publishing Co. 1911. 

7+ Kelynack, Theophilus N., ed. The drink problem in 
its medico-sociological aspects. Dutton. 1907. 

Lombroso, Cesare. Crime, its causes and remedies. Trans. 
by Henry P. Horton. p. 88-101 ; 265-74. Little, Brown. 
702) 

Massachusetts. Drunkenness in Massachusetts: condi- 
tions and remedies. Special report of the Board of 


xlvi SELEOTEDGARTIGLES 


trustees of the Foxborough state hospital. Wright & 
Rotten smio1o: 

*Massachusetts. Report of the Commission to investi- 
gate drunkenness in Massachusetts. Wright and 
Potter. 1914. 

Massachusetts. Twenty-sixth annual report of the Bu- 
reau of the statistics of labor. March, 1896. 


Part 1, p. 1-416. Relation of the liquor traffic to pauperism, 
crime, and insanity. 


+Medico-Actuarial Mortality Investigation. Compiled 
and published by the Association of life insurance 
medical directors and the Actuarial society of Amer- 
ica. New York. 1914. 

Vol. 5, p. II-13; 66-93. 

Michigan. Report of the Commission to investigate the 
extent of feeblemindedness, epilepsy, and insanity 
in Michigan. Wynkoop, Hallenbeck, Crawford Co. 
Lansing. 1915. 

Miles, Walter R. Alcohol and human efficiency: experi- 
ments with moderate quantities and dilute solutions of 
ethyl alcohol on human subjects. Carnegie Institute 
of Washington. 1924. 

National Conference of Social Work. 1919 Proceedings. 
p. 512-19. Substitutes for the saloon. Raymond Calkins. 
+Newsholme, Arthur. Prohibition in America. P. S. 

King & Son. 1922. 

Rogers, Oscar H. The effect of alcohol upon longevity: 
a study in life insurance statistics. 22p. New York 
(Vitewnsnrance, Com 1922! 

*Rosenau, Milton J. Preventive medicine and hygiene. 
Appleton. 1913. 

Starling, Ernest H. Principles of human physiology. 
Lea & Febiger. Philadelphia. 1912. 

*Stewart, G. N. Manual of physiology. p. 618-19. Wm. 
Wood & Co. New York. 1914. 

Stout, Charles T. Eighteenth amendment and the part 
played by organized medicine. Mitchell Kennerley. 
1921. 


PROHIBITION xlvil 


U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue. Laws relating to na- 
tional prohibition enforcement. 142p. 1923. 

+U.S. House of Representatives. Proposed modification 
of the prohibition law to permit the manufacture, sale, 
and use of 2.75 per cent beverages: Hearing before 
the Committee on the judiciary. 68th Cong. Ist Sess. 
1924. 

U.S. House of Representatives. Repeal of war-time 
prohibition. Hearings before the Committee on agri- 
culture. 66th Cong. 2d Sess. 1919. 

U.S. Senate. An experimental inquiry regarding the 
nutritive “value of. alcohol. © W. ©. Atwater ‘and 
Pee enecdict, Loci no, 233285 7th Won wm si sess. 
(Vol. VIII of the Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Science. ) 

U.S. Senate. Prohibiting intoxicating beverages: Hear- 
ings before the Judiciary committee. 66th Cong. Ist 
Sess. 1919 

U.S. Senate. Some scientific conclusions concerning the 
alcoholic problem and its practical relations to life. 
Papers read at the semi-annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can society for the study of alcohol and other drug 
narcotics. Doc. no. 48. 61st Cong. Ist Sess. May 17, 
1909. Washington, D.C. Mar. 17-19, 1909. 

Wilson, Philip W. After two years: a study of Ameri- 
can prohibition. United Kingdom Alliance. London. 
1922. 

*Wisconsin. Report and recommendations of the Wis- 
consin legislative committee to investigate the white 
slave traffic and kindred subjects. Madison. 1914. 
p. 98-103. Prostitution and the liquor traffic. 


PERIODICALS 


American City. 27:295-8. O. ’22. What some mayors 
think of prohibition. 


American City. 29: 567-8. D. ’23. Obligation of local 
officials for prohibition enforcement. Roy A, Haynes. 


xviii SELEGTEDIARTICLES 


American Journal of Public Health. 13:831-4. O. ’23. 
Character of moonshine liquor. J. M. Doran and 
G. F. Beyer. 

American Journal of Public Health. 13: 1029-30. D. ’23. 
Alcoholism, before and after. (editorial). 

American Magazine. 91: 26-8, 103-7. F. ’21. Booze con- 
cealed in hot-water bags, eggs shells, and radiators. 
Allison Gray. 

y+Annals of the American Academy. 109: 1-285. S. ’23. 
Prohibition and its enforcement. (symposium). 

Atlantic Monthly. 129: 539-46. Ap. ’22. The money cost 
of prohibition. L. A. Brown. 

*Century. 107: 323-31. Ja. ’24. Is the world going dry? 
The relation of big business to prohibition. Charles 
Po ticsel |: 

Collier's) Weekly.) /08: 7-8; 22-545 \l5erG, 21a On weal 
everywhere. Samuel H. Adams. 

Collier’s Weekly. 68: 5-6, 26. Aug. 13, ’21. John Barley- 
corn and the worker. Whiting Williams. 

Collier’s Weekly. 68: 11-12, 23. D. 3, ’21. News about 
prohibition. Frazier Hunt. 

Collier's: Weekly, 69:11, 20. My.-20,° 227 "ihe mbna 
illusion. Robert C. Benchley. 

Collier's Weekly. 70: 3-4, 18-19. s. 2, /22. Avdry ecu 
warns the thirsty east. William Allen White. 

Collier's Weekly. 73:'7-8, 28, 32; Ja. 19;.24. Whaterau 
think of prohibition. Willis P. MacGerald et al. 

*Collier’s Weekly. 73: 5-6, Ja. 26, ’24. Who’s wet, and 
why? Jack O’Donnell. 

Consensus. 8: 1-56. Ap. ’23. Prohibition: what are we 
going to do about it? Five addresses before the 
Economic club of Boston, Mar. 6, 1923. 

Contemporary Review. 120: 485-91. O. ’21. Prohibition: 
plain facts and common sense. S. K. Ratcliffe. 

@urrent, History.<) 18:121+3. Ap. 722. The salponman 
American politics. Joseph V. Collins. | 


PROHIBITION xlix 


Current History. 18: 123-5. Ap. ’23. Smuggling whisky 
from Canada. William J. McNulty. 

Current History. 18: 235-45. My. ’23. Why bootlegging 
flourishes. H. L. Scaife. 

*Current History. 19: 368-70. D. ’23. Prohibition under 
the spoils system. William D. Foulke. 

meuccent: History? 19 2371-4, D! 23, Obstaclesiitol'en- 
forcing the Volstead act. Imogen B. Oakley. 

Current Opinion. 68: 451-8. Ap. ’20. Eighteenth amend- 
ment begins to intrude. 

Current Opinion. 72: 440-5. Ap. ’22. How dead is John 
Barleycorn? 

Current Opinion. 75: 335-6. S. ’23. Tribulations of pro- 
hibition enforcement. 

Current Opinion. 75: 652-4. D. ’23. Spigot and bunghole. 

Education. 43:116-19. O. ’22. Prohibition. Frank H. 
Palmer. 

Everybody’s Magazine. 41:26-9. Jl. ’19. Drinking, not 

drinking, and points between. Franklin P. Adams. 

fdatpencuvyVecklyir «5s :10.Ae4'5)/ Tr Alcohol arid the 
degenerative diseases: the deadly parallel between 
our increasing consumption of intoxicants and heart 
and kidney diseases. Norman E. Ditman. 

{Illinois Medical Journal. 43: 428-33. Je. ’23. Certain 
factors to be considered in judging the effects of pro- 
hibition in relation to the use of narcotics. Lester D. 
Volk. 

Independent. 101: 101. Ja. 17, ’20. Alcohol poison cases. 

independentyai ir; 150-15 O. 27;4 23, Thempresident 
tackles prohibition. 

Independent. 111: 210-11. N. 10, ’23. Is drinking a sin? 

Independent. 111:239-40. N. 24, ’23. My brother’s 
keeper—new style. 

Independent. 111: 298-300. D. 22, ’23. Ins and outs of 
prohibition. 

Interstate Medical Journal. 23: 377-84. Je. 716. Alcohol 
and narcotics from the psychological point of view. 


ola VV Patrick 


1 SELECTED FARTIGCIES 


Interstate Medical Journal. 23: 385-403. Je. ’16. The 
hereditary transmission of degeneracy and deformi- 
ties by the descendants of alcoholized mammals. 
Charles R. Stockard. 

Interstate Medical Journal. 23: 431-6. Je. ’16. The in- 
fluence of alcohol on the progeniture. Dr. Alfred 
Gordon. 

Interstate Medical Journal. 23: 442-5. Je. ’16. Alcohol 
and feeble-mindedness. Henry H. Goddard. 

*Journal of the American Medical Association. 35:65- 
71. Jl. 714, ’00. The relation of ethyl alcohol to the 
nutrition of the animal body. Winfield S. Hall. 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 66: 962. 
Mr. 25, 716. Alcohol and immunity. 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 74: 464-5. 
F, 14, ’20. What is so called scientific drink control? 
(editorial). 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 77: 2109- 
11. D. 31, ’21. Ratio between deaths from traumatic 
fracture of cranial bones and from alcohol. Dr. Ed- 
ward H. Hatton. 

Ladies’ Home Journal. 40: 8-9, 179-85. My. ’23. Boot- 
leg liquor and how it kills. A. B. MacDonald and 
Hugh S. Cummings. 

Literary Digest. 61:104-14. Ap. 26, ’19. Hard dies 
demon rum, and the bootlegger makes it harder. 
Literary Digest. 61:18. My. 31, ’19. Wilson and wine. 
Literary Digest. 62:12-13. Jl. 12, ’I9. 2.75 per cent 

alcohol. 

Literary Digest. 62:60-2. Ag. 16, ’19. Futile efforts 
at intoxication on 2.75 beer. 

Literary Digest. 64:18-19. Ja. 17, ’20, Attempts to 
nullify prohibition, 

Literary Digest. 64:36. F. 14, ’20. What shall succeed 
the saloon. 


Literary Digest. 64: 13-15. Mr. 13, ’20. Labor’s verdict 
on prohibition. 


PROHIBITION li 


Literary Digest. 67: 16-17. Mr. 27, ’20. Trouble eu 
for home brewers. 

Literary Digest. 67: 23-4. Mr. 27, ’20. State Aiea on 
prohibition. 

Literary Digest. 67: 58-60. D. 4, ’20. Balking the bring- 
ers of booze over the border. 

Literary Digest. 68: 32-3. Ja. 22, ’21. Why prohibition 
is not enforced. 

Literary Digest. 68: 11-12. Ja. 29, ’21. Prohibition’s 
first year. 

Literary Digest. 70:10-11. Ag. 20, ’21. Rum_ ships 
that pass in the night. 

Eitevarvebivest. 71 244-7/ On22, “21. Darkiand: often 
vain ways of the automobile bootlegger. 

Piterary Digest. 71:13-14. N. 19, ‘21. John Barleycorn, 
M.D 


Bitetaryewicests §72:0-11. Ja. )r4) 22, Rumi crait: 

inivecat yaelicestwe 720 PATS Aube edo oir hwo years! Of 
prohibition. 

Literary Digest. 72: 14-15. Mr, 25, 22, Labor and pro- 
hibition. 

Literary Digest. 73: 40-4. My. 27, ’22. Bootleggers I 
have known—by a prohibition officer. 

Literary Digest. 73:44. Je. 24, ’22. Bootleg whisky as 
a poisoner. 

Literary Digest. 74:8. Jl..8, ’22. Weeks, wines, and 
beer. 

wiitcrary igest., 745-0. le 15; 5-O.n) ieee 5-0) 1. 
POE 2 eA eS 5-0, AG 127-0. AG aloe 10, Ags 
POvmieet moe Ie le o.O.0 22. eM ToMmpilons poll. 

Literary Digest. 74: 10-11. Ag. 12, ’22. Asking England 
to help keep us dry. 

Viterary Digest. 74:40-90. >. 16, ’22))Wets and: drys 
speak out in meeting. 


Literary Digest. 75: 8-9. O. 28, 22. Massachusetts under 
prohibition. 


liv SELEGUEDVARIIELES 


Outlook. 135:406-8. N. 7, ’23. A moonshiner on pro- 
hibition. Francis Pridemore. 

Outlook. 136: 378-9. Mr. 5, ’24. Vicissitudes of boot- 
leggers: Prohibition enforcement in Chicago. (edi- 
torials ) 

Outlook (London). 51:112-13. F. 10, ’23. Prohibition 
in America. C. W. Saleeby. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 
1: 605-8. D. 15, ’15. Neuro-muscular effects of mod- 
erate doses of alcohol. Raymond Dodge and Francis 
G. Benedict. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2: 
380-4. Jl. 15, ’16. The effect of parental alcoholism 
upon the progeny in the domestic fowl. Raymond 
Pearl. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2: 
675-83. D. 15, ’16. Some effects of the continued 
administration of alcohol to the domestic fowl, with 
special reference to the progeny. Raymond Pearl. 

Review of Reviews. 65:607-15. Je. ’22. Three years 
of prohibition: success or failure. Judson C. Welliver. 

Review of Reviews. 67: 605-14. Je. ’23. The rum smug- 
glers: piracy, maritime bootlegging, and hyjacking. 
Judson C. Welliver. 

Review of Reviews. 68: 408-10. O. ’23. Eighteenth 
amendment as it stands today. W. R. Boyd. 

Saturday Evening Post. 193:14-15, 177-8. Ag. 28, ’20. 
The bootleggers. Hilton H. Railey. 

saturday Evening Post’ (1103%/3-4; 40-57...) sa) Dame 
What’s the Constitution between booze? Samuel G. 
Blythe. 

Saturday Evening Post. 193: 8-9, 86, 89. Ap. 9, ’21. A 
prohibition drunkard’s wife. 

Saturday Evening Post. 194: 6-7, 105-6, 109. Mr. 4, ’22. 
Booze complex. Samuel G. Blythe. 

Saturday Evening Post. 195: 61-6. O. 14, ’22. The hotel 
under prohibition. James H. Collins. 


PROHIBITION lv 


Saturday Evening Post. 195:130. Mr. 10, ’23. Effects 
of prohibition on miners. Albert W. Atwood. 

paturdayelLvenine! Post. 9105258, 61-2. -Je.co, °23) ‘The 
great white way amended. James H. Collins. 

Saturday Evening Post. 196: 46-8. F. 9, ’24. Politicians 
and prohibition. Fred F. Sully. 

Survey. 48:12-13. Ap. I, ’22. The indictment of the 
state prohibition director of Pennsylvania. 

PUnVey, 40° 205-O). 3344500 be 22) Che struggle for 
prohibition. | 

Survey. 49:366-7. D. 15, ’22. Stamping out the wine 
congregations. Rudolph I. Coffee. 

Survey. 49: 421-5. Ja. 1, ’23. The struggle for prohi- 
bition. 

Survey. 49:586-9, 602-3. F. 1, ’23. The struggle for 
prohibition. 

murvey. 50:40-3, Ap. 1; “23. The struggle’ for prohi- 
bition. 

Sitiveyi5o: OO, Ap. 15.23. Lhe bar and’ brewers. 

Survey. 50:299-300. Je. 1, ’23. Politics in prohibition 
enforcement. 

Miteraneutics(aazette..14500, bev2T, ' ihe ebb and flow 
inthe tide of sharmitul indulsénce, “L,-S. Blair: 
+World’s Work. 41: 512-16. Mr. ’21, One year of pro- 

hibition. George MacAdam. 
World’s Work. 46:576-7. O. ’23. Revelations of a 


prohibition commissioner. 


AFFIRMATIVE REFERENCES 
Books AND PAMPHLETS 


*Anheuser-Busch, Incorporated. A report on the Que- 
bec beer and wine system with particular respect to 
its effects on temperance. 19p. St. Louis. 1923. 

*Butler, Nicholas M. Law and lawlessness—address be- 
fore the Ohio state bar association. 16p. Tracts for 
Today. 1923. 


lvi SELECTEDTARTICLES 


Butler, Nicholas M. Prohibition is now a moral issue. 
—Address before Missouri Society. 9p. 1924. 

Cadwallader, F. I. The farce of Federal prohibition. 53p. 
IQ19Q. 

Chesterton, G. K. What I saw in America. Dodd, Mead. 
1922. 

p. 141-57. Prohibition in fact and fancy. 

Fox, Austen G. et al. Double enforcement of the Eigh- 
teenth amendment and what it means. 52p. Modera- 
tion League. 1923. 

*Fox, Hugh F. Address at the London conference of 
the International league against prohibition. 1923. 
7Franklin, Fabian. What prohibition has done to Amer- 

iga,, Elarcourt; braces 1022. 

Hartmann, M. J. E. Prohibition and its consequences 
to American liberty. Anti-Prohibition League of 
Missouri. 1923. 

Hennessy, Francis X. Citizen or subject. Dutton. 1923. 

Higgins, Charles M. Unalienable rights and prohibition 
wrongs. 22p. Brooklyn. 1919. 

Horst, E. Clemens. Plenty causes for complaint: four 
articles relative to the Volstead act. 32p. San Fran- 
cisco. 1923. 

Macartney, Clarence E. Two years of prohibition in 
Philadelphia. 15p. Wilbur Hauf. 

Mitchell, Augustus J. Address upon retiring as presi- 
dent of the Essex county (N.J.) Medical Society. 3p. 
Loos: 

Reid, Sir Archdall. The prohibition fallacy. 18p. Wes- 
minster Press. London. 1923. 

yStarling, Ernest H. The action of alcohol on man. 
Longmans, Green. 1923. 

Stokes, E. C. Back to the Constitution and the fulfill- 
ment of the law. tap. Irenton,<N.J. 1922. 

Towne, Charles H. The rise and fall of prohibition. 
Macmillan. 1923. 


PROHIBITION Ivii 


Tumulty, Joseph P. Woodrow Wilson as I know him. 
Doubleday, Page. 1921. 
p. 409-21. Prohibition. 

United States Brewers’ Association. Year Book (annual). 


50 Union Square, New York City. 
7+Vecki, Victor G. Alcohol and prohibition in their rela- 
tion to civilization and the art of living. Lippincott. 
1923. 
PERIODICALS 


Minerican,|ournal of Public Healthy 13 21029-30.,D./23. 
Alcoholism before and after. (editorial). 

American Mercury. 1:161-4. F. ’24.’Prohibition. (edi- 
torial). 

Sa telicaiue cfCliry es li213-15.. bh 2A. Alconol- and the 
duration of life. Raymond Pearl. 

Pia diesoisene, AMcrican WACACeIny. BLOO 202300 5.5 23, 
Our experiment in national prohibition: what pro- 
gress has it made? W. H. Stayton. 

Pditialseorethe American Academy. 100%30-47. >../23: 
The Eighteenth amendment an infringement of lib- 
ibe TES ony eambeclé 

PuaialseOie tueeAmerican Academyint 100. 40°51. 5, 23. 
What’s wrong with the Eighteenth amendment? Fa- 
bian Franklin. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 52-61. S. ’23. 
Inherent frailties of prohibition. John Koren. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109:62-6. S. ’23. 
State rights and prohibition. Henry W. Jessup. 

yAnnals of the American Academy. 109: 67-84. S. ’23. 
The non-effectiveness of the Volstead act. Walter E. 
Edge. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 137-44. S. ’23. 
The consumption of alcoholic beverages. Hugh F. 
Fox. 

Atlantic Monthly. 127: 524-8. Ap. ’21. Relative values 
in prohibition, Louis Graves. 


lvili SELECTEDMARITICLES 


Atlantic Monthly. 132: 433-8. O. ’23. Whiat shall we 
do about it? John C. Haywood. 

Congressional Record. 55: 5586-7. Jl. 31, 17. The pro- 
hibition amendment. Henry Cabot Lodge. 

Congressional Record. 61: 3146-51. Je. 28, ’21.. Enforce- 
ment of prohibition laws. Edwin S. Broussard. 

+Congressional Record. 64:1843-7. Ja. 16, ’23. Prohi- 
bition does not and cannot prohibit. W. Bourke 
Cochran. 

Consensus. 8:5-17. Ap. ’23. Prohibition. Alexander 
Whiteside. 

Consensus. 8:30-5. Ap. ’23. Prohibition. Ransom H. 
Gillett. 

*Current History. 16:377-85. Je. ’22. Prohibition’s re- 
sults. Stuyvesant Fish. 

Current History.) 17748-54' ©), yee esi prontoiio nee 
failure? Ransom H. Gillett. 

Current History. 17: 665-8. Ja. ’23. Is the Volstead act 
a failure? Edward I. Edwards. 

Forum. 67:522-32. Je. ’22. An anti-prohibition ode. 
William Bullock. 

Freeman. 7: 412. (| 11,23) Initherdry places: 

Freeman. 8:54-5. S. 26, ’23. Anarchy-breeders. 

Freeman.” 8: 150-1.'O. 24, 23°) The prices ofaw hist 

Freeman. 8: 390-1. Ja. 2, ’24.. The soft-drinks mind. 

Health. 4:18-24. Ja. ’24. Health and morals vs the 
Volstead act, UDr ous anawliubbard: 

Independent. 108: 576-7. Jl. 8, ’22. The havoc of pro- 
hibition. Fabian Franklin. 

Literary Digest. 64: 50-2. Ja. 17, ’20. Adventures of a 
British investigator in “dry” New York. 

Literary Digest. 70:31. S.17,’21. The “Gloomy Dean” 
hits teetotal fanaticism. 

jliterary Digest,, .71¢q2-13...0. 15, 721, -Porosityson 
prohibition. 

Literary Digest. 71: 28-9. D. 17, ’21. Prohibition under 
the fire of ridicule. 


PROHIBITION lix 


Literary Digest. 73:32-3. Ap. 22, ’22. Genius and 
drink. 

New Republic. 31:61. Je. 14, ’22. Daugherty’s address 
before Illinois bar association. 

New Republic. 32: 59-60. S. 13, ’22. The enforcement 
of prohibition. 

New Republic. 32: 185-7. O. 18, ’22. Enforcement of 
prohibition. 

New Republic. 32: 292-3. N. 15, 22. The enforcement 
of prohibition. 

New Republic. 36: 134-6. S. 26, ’23. Fractions, beer, 
and temperance. Hugh F. Fox. 

*New York Medical Journal and Medical Record. 118: 
108-11. Jl. 18, ’23. Why does not prohibition pro- 
hibit? S. Dana Hubbard. 

New York State Journal of Medicine. 19: 240-6. Je. ’19. 
Beer with an alcoholic content of 2.75 per cent is not 
an intoxicating beverage. George W. Whiteside. 

Nineteenth Century. 95: 306-14. F. ’24. Alcohol and 
meat.: L. F. Easterbrook. 

bfostheimerican Review, 215: 733-6. Je, 22. Prohibi- 
tion and principle. John C. McKim. 

North American Review. 216: 481-8. O.’23. Principles 
underlying prohibition. John C. McKim. 

North American Review. 219:145-59. F. ’24. The pro- 
hibition tangle. John Erskine. 

Outlook. 133:886-7. My. 16, ’23. The pharisees of al- 
cohol. Henry W. Jessup. 

Outlook. 136: 107-9. Ja. 16, ’24. Drink and the tyranny 
of dogma. John J. Chapman. 

SPopulamelinance, “1-6-1. 5.23.) Back! of the dry 
screenery. Robert Alden. 

Survey e402 12T.5 Oi 5, 022°) Prohibition im California. 
Hugh F. Fox. 

Texas State Journal of Medicine. 16: 305-7. N. ’20. 
Prohibition and the practice of medicine. Dr. Alex. 


W. Acheson. 


Ix SELECTED ARIMGLES 


Weekly Review. 1: 697. D. 27, 719. Rhode Island’s pro- 
TESE 

Weekly Review. 3:519-20. D. 1, ’20. Future of prohi- 
bition. 

Weekly Review. 4: 505. My. 28, ’21. An anti-prohibition 
movement. 


ORGANIZATIONS ADVOCATING MODIFICATION OR 
REPEAL OF PROHIBITION 


A dagger ({) indicates the ones from whom pamphlets or other infor- 
mation may be obtained. 


Anti-Prohibition League of Missouri, 1400 Euclid Ave., 
SuRILOUls a LO, 

+Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Na- 
tional headquarters, 511 Eleventh St. N.W., Washing- 
ton, D.C. William H. Slayton, National Managing 
Vice-President; G. C. Hinckley, National Secretary 
and Treasurer. Branches and branch offices in many 
states and larger cities. 

Manufacturers’ and Dealers’ League of the City and 
State of New York. 

+Moderation League, 56 West 45th St., New York City. 

+National Camp of the Veterans of Liberty, 17 N. La 
sallesSt., Chicago, Ill. Robert. [. Halle secretara 

National German-American Alliance, 419 Walnut St., 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

+United States Brewers’ Association, 50 Union Square, 
New York City. Hugh F. Fox, secretary. 


PERIODICALS ADVOCATING MODIFICATION OR 
REPEAL OF PROHIBITION 


Bulletin U.S. Brewers’ Association, 50 Union Square, 
New York City. Hugh F. Fox, editor. 

Bulletin of the Association Against the Prohibition 
Amendment. 511 Eleventh St., N.W. Washington, 
12) 


PROHIBITION Ixi 


Champion of Fair Play. (weekly). 17 N. La Salle St., 
Chicago, Ill. Robert J. Halle, President. 

The Minute Man. (monthly). New Jersey Division of 
the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. 
William L. Fish, editor. 36 Park Place, Newark, 
INI: 

National Bottlers’ Gazette. (monthly). 99 Nassau St., 
New York City. W. B. Keller, editor. 

Sips. (monthly). Consumers Products Co., 148 Flushing 
Ave., Brooklyn, New York City. James M. Baumohl, 
editor. 


NEGATIVE REFERENCES 
Books AND PAMPHLETS 


Anti-Saloon League. National prohibition enforcement 
manual, 32p. American Issue Pub. Co. 1922. 

y+Anti-Saloon League. Year Book (annual). American 
Issue Pub. Co. Westerville, O. 

Cherrington, Ernest H. A cloud of witnesses. 64p. 
American Issue Pub. Co. 1923. 

Cherrington, Ernest H. Permanent American prohibi- 
tion assured. 16p. World League Against Alcohol- 
jn) 1eeey 

Cherrington, Ernest H. What became of the distilleries, 
breweries, and saloons in the United States. 15p. 
World League Against Alcoholism. 1921. 

Corradini. Robert E. The record of 100 American cities : 
arrests for drunkenness and arrests for all causes 
before and after national prohibition. 7p. World 
League Against Alcoholism. 1923. 

Farnam, Henry W. Confessions of a _ prohibitionist. 
Connecticut Federation of Churches. 24p. 1922. 
Fisher, Irving and Fisk, Eugene L. How to live. Funk 

& Wagnalls. 1916. 


p. 64-8. Poisons from without. 
Pp. 227-49. Notes on alcohol. 


Ixii SELECTED VARTICLES 


+Gemmell, William N. Prohibition in Chicago. 5p. 
American Issue Pub. Co. 1923. 

+Gordon, C. M. and Gordon, Gifford. 35,000 miles of 
prohibition. A study of North American prohibi- 
tion. Victorian Anti-Liquor League. Melbourne, Aus- 
tralia. 1923. 

+Gordon, Gifford. Hold fast America. World League 
against Alcoholism. 1921. 

Larimore, J. H. Prohibition and the farmer. 31p. Ameri- 
CAnmISSICR UD AGO. O22; 

Legal Department of the Anti-Saloon League. Prohi- 
bition and its enforcement. 36p. American Issue Pub. 
CO 022) 

National Conference of Social Work. 1919 Proceedings. 


p. 763-4. Prohibition and its social consequences. Robert A. 

oods. 

p. 764-7. The Eighteenth amendment. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

p. 767-73. The whence and whither of prohibition. Eliza- 
beth Tilton. 


p. 773-5. The significance of the anti-alcohol movement. 
Irving Fisher. 
National Conference of Social Work. 1920 Proceedings. 
p. 231-3. The decrease in the alcoholic psychoses in the 
New York state hospitals. Everett S. Elwood. 
p. 233-4. Effects of prohibition on the census of county jails 
in Indiana. John A. Brown. 
p. 235-42. Some snapshot pictures of the effects of national 
prohibition. William H. Pear. 
National Conference of Social Work. 1921 Proceedings. 
p. 133-6. Prohibition and crime. John L. Gillen. 
+Pickett, Deets. How prohibition works in American 
cities. 61p. Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and 
Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
1022) 
+Pringle, Henry N. The national prohibition of alcoholic 
beverages in the United States. 16p. Anti-Saloon 
League. 1923. 
Ransdell, Joseph E. Catholics and prohibition. 12p. 
American Issue Pub. Co. 1923. 


PROHIBITION Ixiil 


Rawden, Edwin. First years of prohibition in Michigan. 
16p. Michigan Anti-Saloon League. 1923. 

Results of Prohibition. 23p. World League Against Al- 
coholism. 1920. 

Shaw, Elton R. Prohibition: going or coming? The 
eighteenth amendment and the Volstead act. Shaw 
Publishing Co. 1924. 

+Spence, Ben H. and Nicholson, S. E. International 
convention of the World league‘against alcoholism. 
Toronto. 1922. American Issue Pub. Co. 1924. 

Steuart, T. Justin. One hundred million dollars saved 
Connecticut in three dry years. 19p. American Issue 
Pupaeo. 1023; 

Stoddard, Cora F. Alcohol in experience and experiment. 
52p. National W.C.T.U. 1922. 

*Stoddard, Cora F. Massachusetts’s experience with ex- 
empting beer from prohibition. 8p. American Issue 
Pip OmErO23. 

Stoddard, Cora F. Shall we save beer and wine? 16p. 
International Reform Bureau. 

Stoddard, Cora F. Wet and dry years in a decade of 
Masschusetts public records. 54p. American Issue 
ob Goel O22, 

Stoddard, Cora F. Where stands the question of prohi- 
bition and drug addiction in the United States: a 
second study. 22p. American Issue Pub. Co. 1923. 

Stoddard, Cora F. The world’s new day and alcohol. 
32p;) American Issue Pub; Co. 

Wheeler, Wayne B. Respect for law, national and 
international. top. Anti-Saloon League. 1923. 
*Wiley, Harvey W. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley on 2.75 per 
cent beer: Is 2.75% beer by weight intoxicating. 4p. 

American Issue Pub. Co. 1920. 

+Wilson, Clarence T. and Pickett, Deets. The case for 
prohibition; its past, present accomplishments, and 
future in America. Funk & Wagnalls. 1923. 


Ixiv SHLYUCTEHDr ARTICLES 


PERIODICALS 


American Magazine. 93:14-15, 66, 68. Mr. ’22. Lest 
we forget: about booze. Keene Sumner. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 1-14. S. ’23. 
The relationship of alcohol to society and to citizen- 
ship. Eugene L. Fisk. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109:15-25. S. ’23. 
Prohibition. Floyd W. Tomkins. 

*Annals of the American Academy. 109:85-I0I. S. ’23. 
The Volstead act. George S. Hobart. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 102-9. S. ’23. 
Men, machinery, and alcoholic drink. Charles Reitell. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 110-20. S. ’23. 
The effect of prohibition on industry from the view- 
point of an employment manager. Eugene J. Benge. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109:121-8. S,) 232: 
Notes about prohibition from the background. Rob- 
ert A. Woods. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 129-32. S. ’23. 
Comments on prohibition by a lumberman and miner. 
eo itles: 

Annals of the American’ Academy... /109:123-6. 55520 
Kansas and its prohibition enforcement. Alfred G. 
Hill. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109: 145-54. S. ’23. 
Liquor in international trade. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

yAnnals of the American Academy. 109:155-64. S. ’23. 
Politics in the enforcement of the liquor laws. Arthur 
Capper. 

yAnnals of the American Academy. 109: 165-74. S. ’23. 
The prohibition law and the political machine. Imo- 
gen B. Oakley. 

Annals of the American Academy. 109:175-8. S. ’23. 
Laborers in heat and in heavy industries. Florence 
Kelley. 


PROHIBITION Ixv 


Annals of the American Academy. 109: 284-5. S. ’23. 
Why I believe in enforcing the prohibition laws. 
Gifford Pinchot. 

feouers Weekly. (Oocti-12, 23.. 1). 2, “21. -The news 
about prohibition. Frazier Hunt. 

Boller. s Weekly: )°70.20-10;, 120, |1 15, 22.) Sober and 
glad of it. Whiting Williams. 

Collier’s Weekly. 71: 5-6. Ja. 27, ’23. Wet Washington. 
William S. McNutt. 

Collier’s Weekly. 71: 13-14. F. 10, ’23. Camels and the 
wise men of the east. Jack O’Donnell. 

Slice ey cekly 7 sLOn vow peideoereUriving the 
drinkers into Sahara. Jack O’Donnell. 

Colicerse Weekly 71.74. Ap..21,) 23," After the drink 
revolution. Ida M. Tarbell. 

Collier’s Weekly. 71:6. My. 19, ’23. Out where the wets 
are a little drier. Charles W. Wood. 

Collier’s Weekly. 71: 15-16..My. 26, ’23. From the jury 
box. Arthur Ruhl. 

Gollicn s Weekly.) 72: 7. Ae. 11,, 23. Closed saloons and 
open minds. Whiting Williams. 

ibonotccsionaue Wecordme40 “1007-75.0 Hi 2q 11.8 ne 
great destroyer. Richmond P. Hobson. 

Congressional Record. 55: 5587-95. Jl. 31, ’17. The pro- 
hibition amendment. Wesley L. Jones. 

B@onotcesionaleriecord. 155. 5045-Om Aor ole wh Zebic 
monarch of all human vices. Lawrence Y. Sherman. 

Congressional Record. 61: 7704-12. N. 15, ’21. Results 
of national prohibition. Wesley L. Jones. 

Congressional Record. 62: 6349-52. My. 4, ’22. Light 
wine and beer and prohibition enforcement. Andrew 


J. Volstead. 

Consensus. 8: 18-29. Ap. ’23. Prohibition. Harold D. 
Wilson. 

Consensus. 8:35-47. Ap. ’23. Prohibition. Wayne B. 
Wheeler. 


Ixvi SEUE CRED AK LIC Ks 


Country Gentleman. 86:11. Mr. 19, ’21. Prohibition 
case is closed. A. B. MacDonald. 

+Country Gentleman. 87:15. N: 4, ’22. Menace ot 
the wet snake. J. S. Frelinghuysen. 

Country Gentleman. 87:3-+. N. 11, ’22. Obedience to 
law is liberty. S. J. Lowell. 

Country Gentleman. 87:20. N. 25, ’22. Repeal? No! 
Mngorcerm yes! } 

CountryaGentleman:87.2,15) gl) 0, 225 Dryerdduarse 
viewed from a dollars and cents basis prohibition 
has helped the farmer. J. R. Howard. 

Country Gentleman. 88:15. Ap. 7, ’23. Them days is 
gone forever. William A. Sunday. 

Country Gentleman. 88:3-4. My. 12, ’23. New York’s 
death cup: a tragic story of prohibition law defiance. 
Raymond G. Carroll. 

Country Gentleman! (337302401) 22.823) evingeapaus 
prohibition. A. B. MacDonald. 

+Current History. 16: 195-202. My. ’22. Facing the facts 
of prohibition. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Current History. 16: 564-72. Jl. ’22. A square deal for 
prohibition. William H. Anderson. 

Current History. 16:572-3. Jl. ’22. Health and prison 
statistics under prohibition. Elizabeth Tilton. 


Current History. 16:845-8. Ag. ’22. Shall constitutional 
government endure? Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Current History. 17:375-82. D. ’22. Prohibition on the 
seas. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

*Current History. 17:1032-9. Mr. ’23. Prohibition in 
the United States. James Cannon, Jr. 

Current History. 18: 724-30. Ag. ’23. Majority rule the 
test of prohibition. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Current History. 18: 1006-1215. “23. . Fourstyeanseor 
prohibition. Robert E. Corradini. 

Current History. 19:847-9. F. ’24. Prohibition en- 
forcement under civil service. Wayne B. Wheeler. 


PROHIBITION Ixvii 


Gurrent. Opinon. -725)\736-42.) }e:) 22) «The, little church 
on Main street. Frank Crane. 

Forum. 61:563-74. My. ’19. Is prohibition constitu- 
tional? Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Forum. 62:68-82. Jl. ’19. Prohibition—Anderson an- 
swers pertinent questions on the battle against alco- 
hol. William H. Anderson. 

*Forum, 65: 473-83. My. ’21. Rum rebellions past and 
present. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Forum, 67: 533-9. Je. ’22. The right to get drunk? Wil- 
liam H. Anderson. 

Morini OO31747-53 11>. 22 ndiiorcin ea thes.drye law. 
Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Good Housekeeping. 74:40, 132-5. Je. ’22. What the 
doctors think of booze. Harvey W. Wiley. 

PrOGdeLIGusckeeping. 70049. 130,01 32-Apel 37. 2164923: 
Why I am going to make Pennsylvania dry. Gifford 
Pinchot. 

Good Housekeeping. 78: 72-3, 235-40. Ap. ’24. Will you 
help keep the law?. Mabel W. Willebrandt. 

Harper’s Monthly. 142: 186-92. Ja. ’21. Prohibition as 
the sociologist sees it. Edward A. Ross. 

*Hearst’s International. 42:81-4. Jl. ’22. Prohibition 
has made good. Woods Hutchinson. 

Independent. 97: 18-19, 32. Ja. 4, ’19. Can prohibition 
drive out drink? Irving Fisher. 

Independent. 108: 23-4. Ja. 14, ’22. How prohibition 
is working. Chester T. Crowell. 

Independent. 109: 123-4. S. 16, ’22. Legality and wis- 
dom of constitutional prohibition. Wayne B. Wheeler. 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 66: 742-3. 
Mr. 4, 716. New evidence against alcohol. (editorial). 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 74: 109- 
10. Ja. 10, ’20. Prohibition and the death rate. 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 74: 1143-4. 
Ap. 24, ’20. The physician and prohibition. Dr. 
Bernard Fantus. 


Ixvili SELECLEDVARTICLES 


Journal of State Medicine. 30: 118-22. Mr. ’22. Alcohol 
as it affects the community. Lady Astor. 

Ladies’ Home Journal. 36:31, 78. My. ’19. Is prohi- 
bition a blow at personal liberty. William H. Taft. 

Ladies’ Home Journal. 39:26, 178. S.’22. Wine-soaked | 
Europe and dry America. Barton W. Currie. 

Ladies’ (Home Journal. “307 14éDs"223940" 23a aoa. 
40: 205-8. Mr. ’23. Enemies of prohibition. Charles 
A Selden, 

t+Ladies’ Home Journal. 40:12, 206, 209-11. N. ’23. 
Whirlpools of beer: the Quebec experiment brings 
the reverse of temperance and sobriety. A. B. Mac- 
Donald. 

Ladies’ Home Journal. 41: 38, 107-8. Ap. ’24. Prohibi- 
tion quitters. Charles A. Selden. 

Ladies’ Home Journal. 41: 21, 212-18. My. ’24. Can we 
trust the brewers? A. B. Macdonald. 

literary Digest” 63:25. D: 27,10.) Eilrectvor ergaiure 
tion on the hospitals. 

Literary Digest. 64: 37-8. F. 14, ’20. Charity and pro- 
hibition. 

Literary Digest. 64:62-4. F. 14, ’20. All aboard the 
water wagon. 

Literary Digest. 64: 108. F. 28, ’20. Prohibition and 
mortality. 

Literary Digest. 67:36. O. 9, ’20. Prohibition blight 
on jails and rescue missions. 

Literary Digest. 69: 19-20. Ap. 16, ’21. Is prohibition 
making drug fiends? : 

Literary Digest. 73:32. Ap. 29, ’22. Less drunken- 
ness among the poor. 

Literary Digest. 73:16. Je. 10, ’22. A poll of the best 
minds on rum’s return. 

Literary Digest. 74:64-6. Jl. 1, ’22. Chicago bankers 
view dry law as thrift-promoter. 

*Locomotive Engineers Journal. 57: 864-5. N. ’23. La- 
bor, booze, and the news (editorial). 


PROHIBITION Ixix 


Locomotive Engineers Journal. 57:868. N. ’23. Why 
prohibition must be enforced. William E. Sweet. 
Locomotive Engineers Journal. 57:868. N. ’23. Pro- 

hibition a permanent policy. William J. Bryan. 

Medical Record. 98: 186-7. Jl. 31, ’20. Alcohol; its 
status quo ante, never! Dr. D. Nathan. 

Mental Hygiene. 5:123-9. Ja. ’21. Decline of alcohol 
and drugs as causes of mental disease. Horatio M. 
Pollock. 

7Mental Hygiene. 6: 815-25. O. ’22. Alcoholic psychoses 
before and after prohibition. Horatio M. Pollock. 

Newer cpublic 9 32:100.70- i110, (2297elhelentorcement 
of prohibition. 

New Republic. 32:305-6. N. 15, ’22. What has prohi- 
bition done to America? Fabian Franklin. Book re- 
view by Felix Frankfurter. 

*New Republic. 35:41-2. Je. 6, ’23. The wet drive 
and the American federation of labor. 

pec wee O1k limes, |e, 35923.) Biovoainsin order and 
health in fifty cities. William N. Gemmill. 

ewer Obl litttess) || 30. 22 Gary says dry law is 
workers’ friend. 

eNews York limes: Je. 15) 24) ‘Poison rum bungaboo 
draws chemist’s fire: Laboratory tests show bootleg 
liquor and anti-prohibition liquor are much the same, 
considered from a toxic viewpoint. Charles D. How- 
ard. 

North American Review. 213: 168-82. F. ’21. Alcohol- 
ism, prohibition and beyond. Pearce Bailey. 

Outlook. 124: 146-7. Ja. 28, ’20. Law and order. Wayne 
Dmyy iiceler: 


utlook gru32 128.09 9027.1122.1° Prohibitiom 
Ontlcokee 122: 5i1.0Ne225.(22. Prohibition: 


Outlook. 133:262-5. F. 7, ’23. Prohibition. William 
J. Bryan. 


Outlook. 133: 492-3. Mr. 14, ’23. Beer and light wines? 


ox SELECTEDUARTICUES 


Outlook. 133:740-1. Ap. 25, ’23. Business benefits of 
prohibition. 

Outlook. 135:20:1. S. 5, ‘23. The furtiveness of diguor. 
Raymond S. Spears. 

Saturday Evening Post. 192:10-11, 181-2, 185. Mr. 20, - 
20. Long wake of John Barleycorn. Woods Hutch- 
inson. 

Saturday Evening Post. 194: 27, 152-4, 156. Mr. 18, ’22. 
Vintage of 1922. 

Saturday Evening Post. 196: 15, 142-6. Mr. 1, ’24. Effect 
of prohibition upon realty values. Felix Isman. 

School and Society. 16:73-4. Jl. 15, ’22. Diminished 
drinking among college students. 

Social Hygiene. 6: 17-43. Ja. ’20. How prohibition came 
to America. Cora F. Stoddard. 

successtul Barming, 921.35, AG.) 11.9 ule) OC) eee 
13. D. ’22. Bamboozled by booze. A. Secor. 

Successful Farming. 22:28. Ja. ’23. Bamboozled by 
pOOzenmA. SeCcOL, 

Successful Farming. 22:22. F.’23. Liberty and liquors. 
Ae econ 

Survey. .47:751.F. 11, ’22. Missionaries for prohibi- 
tion. 

tourvey.i 48 s151-5/pAp. 20) N22.) Beating faboutmtitc 
prohibition bush. T. Henry Walnut. 

Survey. 48:381-2. Je. 15, ’22. Prohibition after three 
years. 

TSurvey. 48:598-9. Ag. 15, ’22. Prohibition and de- 
pendency. 

Survey. 50:240. My. 15, ’23. Prohibition and family 
welfare. Boston Family Welfare Society. 

+War.Cry. No. 2155. p. 5-8, 13. Ja. 20, 723. Shall Amer- 
ica go back? Evangeline Booth. 

World’s Work. 44: 303-6. Jl. ’22. What has prohibition 
done? Elizabeth Tilton. 


PROHIBITION Ixxi 


World’s Work. 44: 463-4. S. ’22. A Chicago judge on 
the working of prohibition. 


ORGANIZATIONS OpposING MODIFICATION OR 
REPEAL OF PROHIBITION 
A dagger (7) indicates the ones from whom pamphlets or other in- 
formation may be obtained. 
yAnti-Saloon League of America. Ernest H. Cherring- 
ton, General Manager Department of Publishing In- 
terests, Westerville, O.; Wayne B. Wheeler, General 
Counsel and Legislative Superintendent, 30 Bliss 
Bldg., Washington, D.C. 


There are branch offices in each state and in many of the 
large cities. 


Flying Squadron Foundation, 1200 People’s Bank Bldg., 
Indianapolis, Ind. 

yIntercollegiate Prohibition Association, 35 B. Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. Harry S. Warner, general 
SECLClary. 

{National Temperance Society, 289 Fourth Ave., New 
WY OVleCity a 

+National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1730 
Ghicaco Ave., Evanston, Il;)35'B) Street, N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 

Prohibition National Committee, 206 Pennsylvania Ave., 
S.E., Washington, D.C. Virgil G. Hinshaw, chairman. 

+Scientific Temperance Federation, 73 Tremont St., Bos- 
ton, Mass. Cora Frances Stoddard, executive secre- 
tary. 

+World League Against Alcoholism, 30 Bliss Bldg., 
Washington, D.C. (Affiliated with the Anti-Saloon 
League) 

tWorld Prohibition and Reform Federation (formerly 
International Reform Bureau), 206 Pennsylvania 
Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. Virgil G. Hinshaw, 
superintendent. 


Ixxil SELECTEDSARTIGUES 


PERIODICALS OPpposiNnGc MODIFICATION OR 
REPEAL OF PROHIBITION 


American Issue (weekly), Anti-Saloon League, West- 
erville, O. 

California Voice (weekly), 208 Bryson Bldg., Los 
Angeles, Cal. Wiley J. Phillips, editor. 

Illinois Banner (weekly), 32 S. Vermillion St., Dan- 
ville, Ill. George W. Woolsey, editor. 

Index (monthly), Prohibition League of Williamsport, 
Williamsport, Pa. C. W. Huntington, editor. 

Intercollegiate Statesman (monthly, October to May), 
Intercollegiate Prohibition Association, 35 B Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. Harry S. Warner, editor. 

National Advocate (monthly), National Temperance So- 
ciety, 2890 Fourth Ave:, New York City, Charles 
Scanlon “editor. 

National Enquirer (weekly), Flying Squadron Founda- 
tion, 1200 People’s Bank Bldg., Indianapolis, Ind. 
Oliver W. Stewart, editor. 

Scientific Temperance Journal (Quarterly), Scientific 
Temperance Federation, 73 Tremont St., Boston, 
Mass. Cora Frances Stoddard, editor. 

Union Signal (weekly), National Woman’s Christian 
Temperance Union, 1730 Chicago Ave., Evanston, 
Ill. Anna A. Gordon, editor. 

Water Lily (monthly), National Temperance Society, 
289 Fourth Ave., New York City. Annie E. Oldrey, 
editor. 

World Dry (monthly), World Prohibition and Reform 
Federation, 206 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Washing- 
ton, D.C. J. Raymond Schmidt, editor. 

Young Crusader (monthly), National Woman’s Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, 1730 Chicago Ave., Evans- 
ton, Ill. 

Youth’s Temperance Banner (monthly), National Tem- 
perance Society, 289 Fourth Ave., New York City. 
Annie E. Oldrey, editor. 


GENERAL DISCUSSION 







Ns ’ > iy P A am ie a ae Prd ry Tees: ; of a“ 
Ran Wate ta i hs ele kaod Wool ue Fe 
sais ay ta i Gt hd ; ee sD he £4 ht 





a) 
} 
’ 
, ’ 
' 
, 
fra i) 
‘ af 


wi 
1 
ni 
' 
va | 
ay 
' g%, 
ie 
i fi 
y . 
, ‘ 
“4 
uy a 
rs ois 
7 


i, guy 
4) es, : 4 
Gir se 


I. PHYSIOLOGICAL RESULTS OF 
ALCOHOL AS A BEVERAGE 


THE FACTS ABOUT ALCOHOL? 


1. In small quantities alcohol is oxidized in the 
body, a little of it, however, being excreted unchanged 
in the breath and urine. A certain amount of protein is 
saved from decomposition when alcohol is taken, just as 
when fat or sugar is taken. For example, the addition of 
one hundred and thirty grams of sugar to the daily food 
of an individual caused a sparing of three-tenths gram 
nitrogen. The substitution of seventy-two grams alcohol 
for the sugar caused two-tenths gram nitrogen to be 
spared. (Atwater and Benedict.) Alcohol is therefore 
to some extent a food substance, although it is not, under 
ordinary circumstances, taken for the sake of the energy 
its oxidation can supply, but as a stimulant. 

2. There is no reason to suppose that this energy 
cannot be utilized as a source of work in the body. In- 
deed a certain amount of alcohol may be normally 
formed in the tissues as one of the intermediate products 
in the oxidation of sugar. Heat can certainly be pro- 
duced from it, but this is far more than counterbalanced 
by the increase in the heat loss which the dilation of the 
cutaneous vessels caused by alcohol, brings about. 

3. It is a valuable drug, when judiciously employed, 
in certain diseases—e.g. pneumonia, and puerperal in- 
sanity. (Clouston. ) 

4, Alcohol is occasionally of use in disorders not 
amounting to serious diseases—e.g. in some cases of slow 
and difficult digestion. In these cases it may act by in- 


1 By Dr. G. N. Stewart. A Manual of Physiology. p. 618-19. 


4 SHLEG TED SARTIGCLES 


creasing the flow of certain of the digestive secretions, as 
saliva and gastric juice. This effect seems to more than 
counterbalance the retarding influence which, except 
when well diluted, it exerts on the chemical processes of 
digestion. 

The action of alcohol on the secretion of gastric juice 
has been studied in a dog with a double gastric and oeso- 
phageal fistula. Before or during a sham meal of meat, 
alcohol diluted with water was given as an enema. After 
the enema the quantity of hydrochloric acid secreted in- 
creased in about the same proportion as the quantity of 
juice, but the pepsin was diminished, reaching a mini- 
mum after three-quarters to one and a quarter hours. 
The increase in the total quantity of the juice and in the 
acid over-compensated the moderate diminution in the 
digestive power, so that the net result was beneficial. 
(Pekelharing.) But it must be remembered that strong 
alcoholic beverages, when mixed with the gastric juice, 
and therefore when taken by the mouth, retard the pro- 
teolytic action, so that any favorable effect on the secre- 
tion of the juice may easily be lost in the subsequent di- 
gestion, unless the alcohol is dilute. (Chittenden and 
Mendel.) The action of alcohol introduced into the rec- 
tum on the gastric secretion is both reflex and direct. 

5. Alcohol is of no use for healthy men. 

6. Alcohol in strictly moderate doses (not more 
than one and one-half ounces of absolute alcohol), pro- 
perly diluted and especially when taken with food, is not 
harmful to healthy men, living and working under ordi- 
nary conditions. 

7. Modern experience goes to show that in severe 
and continuous exertion, coupled with exposure to all 
weathers, as in war and in exploring expeditions, alcohol 
is injurious, and it is well-known that it must be avoided 
in mountain climbing. 

Alcohol in small doses, when given by the stomach or 
(in animals) injected into the blood, causes stimulation 
of the respiratory center and increase in the pulmonary 


PROHIBITION 5 


ventilation. In man, this increase usually amounts to 8 
to 15 per cent, but is occasionally much greater. But the 
limit which separates the favorable action of the small 
dose from the hurtful action of the large, is easily over- 
stepped. When this is done, and the dose is continually 
increased, the activity of the respiratory center is first 
diminished and finally abolished. In dogs, for instance, 
after the injection of considerable quantities of alcohol 
into the stomach, death takes place from respiratory fail- 
ure, and the breathing when the heart is still un- 
weakened. This is the final outcome of a progressive 1m- 
pairment in the activity of the center, of which the slow 
and heavy breathing of the drunken man represents an 
earlier stage. 


fie > ChOLOGIC ALAM ONG Torr 
WAC GI TOI EE: 


The more blood goes to the skin, the more blood is 
cooled. The body as a whole may be cooler, but we feel 
warmer when there is more blood in the skin because of 
the effect to the warm blood upon the nerves of tempera- 
ture. There are no nerves for perceiving temperature 
except in the skin and mucous membrane, and the body 
has practically no sensation of heat and cold except from 
the skin or mucous membrane. That alcoholic drinks 
make the skin red is commonly noticed. Often the skin 
is flushed by one drink; the bloodshot eyes and purple 
skin of the toper are the results of habitual use. Can 
you explain why alcohol brings a deceptive feeling of 
warmth? Why does alcohol increase the danger of freez- 
ing during very cold weather? (p. 21-2.) 

After a person has taken an alcoholic drink his face 
and skin are likely to become flushed, and perhaps his 
heart beats faster. Most investigators have found that 
the alcohol itself does not directly increase or strengthen 
the action of the heart. Hence it is probably wrong to 


1By Walter M. Coleman. Human Biology. Pages as noted above. 


6 SELEGERBDTARTICLES 


call alcohol a heart stimulant. The flushing of the skin 
is believed to be due to the relaxing effect of alcohol. It 
relaxes, it paralyzes, the vasomotor nerves which con- 
trol the little muscle fibres in the walls of the blood ves- 
sels. The relaxing and enlarging of the blood vessels de- 
creases the resistance to the blood flow, and the heart 
beats faster under its lighter load. The narcotic effect of 
alcohol is much more powerful than its irritating or stim- 
ulating effect. The effect of alcohol in causing fatty de- 
generation of the muscles often weakens the heart and 
other blood vessels. (p. 67-8.) 

A few years ago Professor Atwater proved that if 
alcohol is taken in small quantities it is so completely 
burned in the body that not over 2 per cent is excreted. 
He infered that it is a food, since it gives heat to the 
body and possibly gives energy also. His experiments 
did not show whether any organ was weakened or in- 
jured by its use. As alcohol is chiefly burned in the liver, 
it probably cannot supply energy as is the case with food 
burned in nerve cell and muscle cell. The heat supplied 
by its burning is largely lost by the rush of blood to the 
skin usually caused by drinking the alcohol. Dr. Beebe, 
unlike Professor Atwater, experimented upon persons 
who had never taken alcohol, and whose bodies had not 
had time to become trained to resist its evil effects. He 
found that it caused an increased excretion of nitrogen. 
When the body became used to it, this decreased, but the 
proteid excreted by the kidneys contained an abnormal 
amount of a harmful material called uric acid. Uric acid, 
a substance which is present in rheumatism and other 
diseases, is usually destroyed by the liver. As the bur- 
den of destroying the alcohol falls chiefly upon the liver, 
it is not surprising to find that it is so weakened and in- 
jured by alcoholic drink that it cannot fully perform its 
important functions. Bright’s disease and other diseases 
accompanied by uric acid are more frequent among per- 
sons who use alcoholic drinks. (p. 113-14.) 


PROHIBITION 7 


ibibo hi lON oO reALCOMOL (1G) 
NO LRITION:+ 


W. O. Atwater, professor of chemistry at Wesleyan 
University, Middletown, Connecticut, and head of the 
work being done in the government experiment stations 
on the chemistry of foods, has arraigned the school text- 
books of physiology before the American people on the 
charge of falsehood, because these books teach the boys 
of America that alcohol is a poison and not a food, while 
his experiments with men shut up in a calorimeter dem- 
onstrate to his satisfaction that “alcohol is a food” and 
“not a poison, in moderate quantities.’ Professor At- 
water’s definition of food is “that which taken into the 
body builds tissues or yields energy.” Note especially 
the alternative between “tissue-building”’ and “energy- 
yielding.” According to this experimenter, any sub- 
stance is a food if it is oxidized “in the body” anywhere 
between the mouth and the excretory surface. Not since 
the days of Liebig, a half-century ago, have the bars that 
set a boundary to foods been so ruthlessly torn down. 
Even iron filings and phosphorous satisfy the terms of 
this definition; and a long list of ptomains, leucomains, 
and toxins come clearly within the definition. 


eA Pe Res BO) Gigs 


ALCOHOL 
1. A certain quantity 
will produce a certain ef- 
fect at first, but it requires 
more and more to produce 
the same effect when the 
drug is used habitually. 


1By Dr. Winfield S. Hall. 
ciation. 35:68. July 14, 1900. 
2By Dr. Winfield S. Hall. 
ciation. 35:71. July 14, 1900. 


Foop 
Il. A certain quantity 
will produce a certain ef- 
fect at first, and the same 
quantity will always pro- 
duce the same effect in a 
healthy body. 


Journal of the American Medical Asso- 


Journal of the American Medical Asso- 


8 SELECTED 


ALCOHOL 
2. When used habitu- 
ally, it is likely to induce 
an uncontrollable desire for 
more, in ever increasing 
amounts. 


S/eAdter its “habitual 
use a sudden total absti- 
nence is likely to cause a 
serious derangement of the 
central nervous system. 


4. Alcohol is oxidized 
rapidly in the body. 


5. Alcohol, not being 
useful, is not stored in the 
body. 


6" Alcoho) Mis ja" pro- 
duct of decomposition of 
food in the presence of a 
scarcity of oxygen. 


7. Alcohol is an ex- 
cretion and, in common 
with all excretions, is poi- 
sonous. It may be benefi- 
cial in certain phases of 
disease, but it is never 
beneficial to the healthy 
body. 


8/7) The use ‘or alcohol! 
in common with narcotics 
in general, is followed by 
a reaction. 


ARTICLES 


Foop 
2. The habitual use of 
food never induces an un- 
controllable desire for it, 
in ever increasing amounts. 


3. After its habitual 
use a sudden total absti- 
nence never causes any de- 
rangement of the central 
nervous system. 


4, All foods are oxt1- 
dized slowly in the body. 


9. All; foods, “bem 
useful, are stored in the 
body. 


6.’ All’ toods “eremtite 
products of constructive 
activity of protoplasm in 
the presence of abundant 
oxygen. 


7. All foods are form- 
ed by nature for nourish- 
ment and are by nature 
wholesome and _ always 
beneficial to the healthy 
body, tho they may injure 
the body in certain phases 
of disease. 


GO, “Lhe! usS6. 0 preteees 
is followed by no reaction. 


PROHIBITION 9 


ALCOHOL 
9. The use of alcohol 
is followed by a decrease 


ai atnee activity ©con Mine 
miscle-cells* -and. brain 
cells. 


10s Lhe. use. of alco- 
hol is followed by a de- 
crease in the secretion of 


aay 


11. The use of alco- 
hol is followed by an ac- 
cumulation of fat thru de- 
creased activity. 


12. The use of alco- 
hol is followed by a fall in 
body temperature. 


13. The use of alcohol 
weakens and unsteadies the 
muscles. 


14. The. use ot alco- 
hol makes the brain less 
active and accurate. 


Foop 
9. The use of food is 
followed by an increased 
activity of the muscle-cells 
and brain-cells. 


Lie Lhe Useron Tood 4s 
followed by an increase in 
the excretion of CO,. 


Pivibher use ror food 
may be followed by an ac- 
cumulation of fat, notwith- 
standing increased activity. 


12% whe use of, foods 
followed by a rise in body 
temperature. 


13." The use of food 
strengthens and _ steadies 
the muscles. 


14a hewtuses of ito0d 


‘makes the brain more ac- 


tive and accurate. 


SeCOMOLTAN DANS ANT Ye" 


Whether or not the question of the effect of alcohol 
upon heredity be debatable, science leaves no grounds for 
discussion as to the direct effect upon the individual. It 
is not necessary, indeed, to call upon science for demon- 
stration; a walk through a ward of alcoholics, or for the 
insane 1n any hospital, lays bare the appalling results of 


Moye Dru, Cao Wholey: 
February, 1913. 


West Virginia Medical Journal. 


7: 260-4. 


10 PELE GREDTARRIGUES 


chronic alcoholism—all grades of inflammation of the 
nerves from that of the single nerve, or group of nerves, 
to complete paralysis of the arms and legs. There is in 
the body no nerve which may not become the seat of in- 
flammation induced by alcohol; and the brain itself may 
become affected, manifesting the injury in delirium 
tremens, strange delusions, and lapses of memory, under 
which crimes, impossible to the same individual under 
normal condition, such as forgery or murder, may be 
committed, and finally the result is all too often incurable 
insanity. I will quote from the latest bulletin of Man- 
hattan State Hospital: ‘Of the insane under the care 
of the state 28 per cent owe their insanity to alcohol as 
a determining cause. In many instances there are other 
contributing causes, but these cases of insanity would 
not have occurred had it not been for the use of alcohol.” 
Dr. Hioch says: “From a series of fifteen thousand male 
patients admitted to hospitals in New York and Massa- 
chusetts, 24 per cent suffered from alcoholic insanity.” 

Cushny, the most noted modern authority on the ac- 
tion of drugs, says: “Even the smallest quantities of alco- 
hol tend to lessen the activity of the brain, the drug ap- 
pearing to act most strongly, and, therefore in the smal- 
lest quantities, on the most recently acquired faculties, 
to annihilate those qualities which have been built up | 
through education and experience, the power of self-con- 
trol, and the sense of responsibility. 


ALCOHOL AND THE DURATION OF Tits 


The average man in these sad times takes a drink 
whenever he can get it. This does not necessarily mean 
that he is lacking in either sense or prudence. It merely 
indicates that his contact with alcoholic beverages has 
been, on the whole, pleasant, and that his general ex- 


1 By Dr. Raymond Pearl. American Mercury. 1: 213-15. February, 
1924. 


PROHIBITION II 


perience with the whole world and his fellow men has 
not substantiated the horrendous tales about the devas- 
tating consequences, in disease and early death, of any in- 
dulgence in alcohol which have been dinned into his ears 
from earliest childhood. He has seen people drink them- 
selves to death, to be sure; but he has observed that a 
vastly larger number of persons have used alcohol with 
freedom, but not in excess, all their lives, and ultimately 
died of no different diseases and at no different ages than 
other people, so far as he can judge. Furthermore he 
notes that while in some countries and times a great deal 
more alcohol is consumed than in others, there are no 
striking, or even evident, corresponding changes in either 
general well-being or rates of mortality. 

In spite of this general experience, most men do not 
feel quite easy about the matter, because of the teaching 
as to the direful effects of alcohol to which they were 
subjected in their youth. In a number of states it is a 
legal requirement that all elementary-school physiology 
and hygiene shall include the teaching that alcohol is 
harmful. Naturally, no real evidence can be presented, 
and probably it is fair to say that real evidence is the last 
thing that those responsible for the placing of this legis- 
ath on the statute books would have desired. School 
boys and girls, however, are apt to believe what teacher 
and text book tell them. .So what would otherwise be 
the unquestioned conclusion from adult experience is in 
some degree clouded and shaken by the relics of child- 
hood teaching. 

Another thing which gives the common citizen pause 
in accepting whole-heartedly the idea that the moderate 
and judicious drinking of alcohol is not seriously harm- 
ful, is that he has been told that the experience of life 
insurance companies has proved that the use of even the 
smallest amount definitely shortens life. The deductions 
of the actuary have a great reputation for deadly pre- 
cision and finality among persons who know nothing 


12 SE DERGCEDMA RW THICUES 


about their basis. This reputation is probably somewhat 
higher, in general, than the real merits of the case would 
warrant. Certainly in the matter of present interest, 
what the insurance companies actually know about the 
effects of alcohol upon mortality can by no possibility be 
held to justify the conclusions which the public, sternly 
guided by the Anti-Saloon League and the W.C.T.U., 
have drawn. The insurance “evidence” on alcohol suf- 
fers from two fundamental defects. They are: 

1. There is no definite knowledge of the alcoholic 
habits of the individual over any significant portion of 
his life. The only knowledge an insurance company has 
of an individual comes from (a) the statements of the 
individual himself when he applies for a policy; (b) the 
continuance of his life as evidenced by the payment of 
premiums, and (c) his death, as evidenced by a claim 
under the policy contract. Now, granting that every ap- 
plicant told the truth when he applied, the picture of his 
alcoholic habits then set down 1s, and can be, only of that 
time and the immediate past. But nothing is more cer- 
tain than that the drinking habits of many individuals 
change from what they are at the comparatively early 
age at which insurance is applied for. These habits may 
and do change in both directions. Some persons become 
heavier drinkers, others less heavy, than when they ap- 
plied for insurance. So then, in fact, it may be taken to 
be the case that in the non-abstainer section of insurance 
experience there is a mixture, in wholly unknown pro- 
portions, of (a) persons who, for the major portions of 
their lives, have been total abstainers; (b) moderate 
drinkers; (c) excessive drinkers. There will also be the 
same three classes, again in quite unknown proportions, 
represented in the abstainers’ class in the experience of 
all companies except a very few which require an annual 
statement from the policy-holder as to his continued ab- 
stention. 


PROHIBITION 13 


2. Since most insurance companies are known to 
discriminate against persons using alcohol as a beverage 
in more than a certain (to the applicant unknown) 
amount or degree, an incentive is at once created for the 
applicant to understate the amount of his alcoholic in- 
dulgence. The discrimination may take the form of a re- 
fusal to accept the risk, or of a demand for an increased 
premium rate, or of a reduced participation in so-called 
bonuses or dividends. But in any case there is a power- 
ful incentive for the applicant to make out as favorable 
a case as possible for himself. 

I can best put the insurance case in this way: Sup- 
pose an experimenter wished to determine the effect of 
the typhoid bacillus upon longevity, and to that end fed 
a varying and unknown amount of a broth culture con- 
taining varying and unknown numbers of bacilli to a 
number of animals of varying and unknown hereditary 
constitutions and innate degrees of resistance to typhoid; 
then shut them up in a room with free and unlimited ac- 
cess to cultures of typhoid germs; and made no further 
observation upon them whatever, except of the time of 
their death. What possible deductions could be made 
from such an experiment? Yet it would furnish data 
which in every essential would be precisely of the same 
character and value as the experience of life insurance 
companies regarding alcohol and the duration of life. 

Can we do no better than this? The question is an 
important one. What is needed is critical ad hoc data, in 
which the alcoholic habits of the individual throughout 
life are accurately known and recorded. Such evidence 
does not exist either in official or in insurance statistics. 
The data must be collected at first hand, with due regard 
to all the biological and statistical pitfalls along the way. 
A respectable body of such material I have recently been 
able to get through the activity of a group of trained 
eugenic field workers. It has been analyzed in detail in 


14 SE LEG LE DAR TIGLES 


a recent book “The Action of Alcohol on Man,” with re- 
sults which can be only briefly summarized here. 

The data included twelve hundred and fifty-nine men 
and seven hundred and eighty-eight women. They fell 
into three groups as to drinking habits: total abstainers, 
moderate and occasional drinkers, and heavy and steady 
drinkers. Appropriate mathematical analysis of the data 
showed that the average total duration of life of those 
entering the experience at the age of twenty was as fol- 
lows: 


Males 
Rotal ta pstainers en. kunt ed iy eee ee me ces 60.05 years 
Moderate ands oceasional:.... tbat eer OVOA"sa 
Tléavy ‘and ‘steady coer aes eee eerie Bo avihiete 
Females 
Totalvabstainers meee eee ee eee 58.49 years 
Moderatevand soctasionalah...cta eee Of, 70s0e 
Heavy saniGc steal Vix co cs ais cr lte  thien ee eee AT SOs 


For white urban dwellers the official United States 
life tables show an average total duration of life of males 
entering the experience at the age of twenty of 60.51 
years, and of females of 63.51 years. These figures dem- 
onstrate that our material for the study of the alcohol 
problem is normal from an actuarial standpoint. 

The conclusion which is reached from an elaborate 
and critical mathematical, biological, and_ sociological 
analysis of this material is that while heavy drinking dis- 
tinctly shortens life, moderate drinking, on the other 
hand, is associated with no different duration of life than 
is total abstention. Actually, the moderate drinkers show 
a superior average of duration of life as compared with 
the abstainers, amounting to .99 of a year in the case 
of males and 3.21 years in the case of females, both 
groups entering the experience at the age of twenty. No 
stress, however, is to be laid on these small differences. 


PROHIBITION 15 


DVL ee Geb, 


To talk of alcohol as a food is really absurd.—Dr. 
Wood Hutchinson. A Handbook of Health. p. 97. 


Alcohol tends to lower the temperature of the body 
by increasing the amount of heat lost—Dr. Milton J. 
Rosenau. Preventive Medicine and Hygiene. p. 355. 


Alcohol is a poison. The very word “intoxication” 
is a recognition of this fact—Dr. Albert M. Barrett. 
American Magazine. 93:14. March, 1922. 


Whisky and brandy are entirely unnecessary in medi- 
cal practice.—Dr. Bernard Fantus, Journal of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association. 75: 1144. April 24, 1920. 


The long and sad experience of the race with alcohol 
proves that the attempt to adapt the body to its use 
should be given up.—Walter M. Coleman. Human Biol- 
GOS Ps ee: 


The history of heredity conducts us to alcoholism, and 
these two should be considered the principal causes of 
degeneration.—Dr. Jules (Morel. American Journal of 


Sociology. 5:81. July, 1599. 


It is likely that alcohol, as a predisposing or as an 
immediate cause, is responsible for more than a third of 
all admissions to our hospitals for the insane.—Dr. M1I- 
ton J. Rosenau. Preventive Medicine and Hygiene. p. 301. 


As alcohol is burned up in the body, it saves carbo- 
hydrates, fat, and albumen, and is therefore to be 
reckoned among the nutritive substances——John Koren. 


Alcohol and Society. p. 6. 


16 SELEGLEDVARTICLES 


Most investigators feel that there are too many crim- 
inal, imbecile, insane, and unhealthy persons among the 
offspring of drunkards to dismiss the matter as a coin- 


cidence.—Michael F. Guyer. Being Well-born. p. 168. 


Alcoholic subjects with degenerated tissues are well 
known to fall easy victims to infectious diseases.—Dr. 
Robert B. Wild. British Journal of Inebriety. 16:65. 
January, 1919. 


Alcohol which ancestors use seems to curse number- 
less descendants in body or mind or in both. The worst 
of it is that the curse is liable to be passed on even 
though these descendants do not themselves use alcohol. 
—Frances G. Jewett. The Next Generation. p. 125. 


There are few medical men today who would not 
agree that it [alcohol] is a most valuable drug and one 
which we could ill do without in practice—Dr. Robert 
Flutchinson in Starling, Ernest H. The Action of Alco- 
hol on Man. p. 177. 


Alcohol does not belong to the poisons. It is rather 
a substance which, taken in moderation, nourishes and 
exerts special effects on the nervous system, effects that 
are not even disturbances, and therefore not phenomena 
of poisoning.—Dr. J. Starke. Alcohol, the Sanction for 
LES EU Se aan et 


Having a great affinity for water and being a coagu- 
lant of protein, alcohol tends to destroy the cells. It 
should, therefore, be regarded essentially as a protoplas- 
mic poison.—Dr. Russell Burton-Opitz. A Text Book of 
Physiology for Students and Practitioners of Medicine. 
p. 1003. 


No thorough study of its [alcohol’s] influences could 
warrant any other conclusion than that it is the most ac- 


PROHIBITION 7 


tive influence present in our social life forthe production 
of poverty, criminality, and physical and nervous de- 
generacy.—freport of the Commission to Investigate the 
Extent of Feeblemindedness, Epilepsy, and Insanity 1m 
Michigan. p. 28. | 


The consumption of alcoholic beverages up to an 
amount and frequency which in common parlance is 
called moderate does not sensibly shorten the mean dura- 
tion of life or increase the rate of mortality, as compared 
with that enjoyed by total abstainers from alcohol.—Ray- 
mond Pearl in Starling, Ernest H. The Action of Alco- 
hol on Man. p. 278. 


The strongest indictment against alcohol is that it ex- 
cites the passions and at the same time diminishes the 
will power. The fact that alcohol lowers moral tone 
does much more harm than all the cirrhotic livers, 
hardened arteries, shrunken kidneys, inflamed stomachs, 
and other lesions believed to be caused by its excessive 
use.—Dr, Milton J. Rosenau. Preventive Medicine and 
Hygiene. p. 58. 


The result of medical inspection in the schools of 
New York has revealed the fact that 53 per cent of the 
children of alcoholic parents are “dullards,”’ as compared 
with 10 per cent of the children of abstainers. Researches 
on animals which had small quantities of alcohol ad- 
ministered in their food prove decisively that the heredi- 
tary factor in alcoholism is not imaginary.—Dr. Alexan- 
der Bryce. The Laws of Life and Health. p. 105. 


There is no longer room for doubt in reference to the 
toxic action of alcoholic beverages as weak as 2.75 per 
cent by weight. If 27.5 grams of alcohol are taken in 
this form, the well defined and measurable depression in 
physical and mental processes, judged within the limits 
of this investigation, is not far short of the result found 


18 SEUEGTEDTARTIGLES 


when 21 to 28 grams of alcohol are taken in solutions 
varying from 14 to 22 per cent.—Walter R. Miles. Alco- 
hol and Human Efficiency. p. 275. 


Alcohol is without doubt a food. It is absorbed 
readily and rapidly both from the stomach and from the 
intestines. It passes into the blood and thence into all 
the tissues and fluids of the body. In the tissues it under- 
goes oxidation in the same way as sugar or fat. Asa 
result of this oxidation energy is set free which may be 
utilized for the production of muscular work or as heat 
to maintain the temperature of the body —Dr. Ernest H. 
Starling. The Action of Alcohol on Man. p. 169. 


An ordinary, healthy adult may take without injury 
1% to 2 ounces of whisky (or other spirits) or two pints 
of light ale, or the equivalent'in some other form of al- 
coholic drink, ina day. Possibly I might go further and 
state that in the case of a young, vigorous man, taking 
much vigorous exercise, producing excessive tissue 
waste, even more might be consumed without injury. The 
same applies to the hard-working laborer, the perfor- 
mance of whose daily work entails great output of mus- 
cular energy—Dr. Sidney Hiller. Popular Drugs. 
p. 01-2. 


Although it was long thought that the mortality from 
tuberculosis exceeded that resulting from any other dis- 
ease in this country, it has recently been ascertained that 
there is another disease or group of diseases usually oc- 
curring together in the same subject which not only has 
a far greater mortality record, but is rapidly increasing. 
This is the group known as degenerative diseases, con- 
sisting of heart and kidney diseases and arteriosclerosis. 
While the mortality in the U.S. from tuberculosis dur- 
ing the year 1909 was about 127,000 the mortality from 
the degenerative diseases was 235,000, almost twice as 


PROHIBITION 19 


great. Tuberculosis is diminishing in amount. The de- 
generative diseases have increased since 1880 at the rate 
of 103 per cent. The chief causes of these diseases as a 
class are alcohol and excessive meat diet—Dr. Norman 


E. Ditman. Harper's Weekly. 55:19. August 5, IQIt. 


In the recent medico-actuarial investigation, includ- 
ing forty-three American life insurance companies, the 
combined experience on users of alcohol has been com- 
piled, with very interesting results. It may be subdi- 
vided as follows: (1) Individuals who took two glasses 
of beer, or a glass of whisky, or their alcoholic equiva- 
lent, each day. In this group the mortality was 18 per 
cent in excess of the average. (2) Those who were ac- 
cepted as standard risks but who gave a history of oc- 
casional alcoholic excess in the past. The mortality in 
this group was 50 per cent in excess of the mortality of 
insured lives in general, equivalent to a reduction of over 
four years in the average lifetime of the group. (3) Men 
who indulge more freely than the preceding group, but 
‘who are considered acceptable as standard insurance 
risks. In this group the mortality was 86 per cent in 
excess of the average—Fisher and Fisk. How to Live. 


p. 300-7. 


It is not attested by history nor by present-day facts 
that alcohol-using nations must inevitably succumb to the 
forces of intemperance. It is commonplace that peoples 
more or less habituated to the use of intoxicants have 
made incomparably greater progress in things that are 
the boast of our civilization than, for instance, totally or 
partially abstaining peoples, such as the Hindus and 
Mohammedans. Racial or cultural differences do not 
account for this condition. One notes, too, that the de- 
eree of eminence attained by various European nations 
does not seem to bear any relation whatsoever to their 
drink habits. The great war has served to bring this into 


20 SEUEGLEDIAR ICL ES 


light. The endurance and ability to organize shown by 
France, not to mention her pre-eminence in peaceful pur- 
suits, appear to be unimpaired, although the country is 
perhaps the most alcoholic in Europe. Both in pacific 
and military arts the Belgians measure high in the scale, 
although their consumption of drink is almost twice as 
ereat as that of the United States. No nation has de- 
veloped a more marvelous efficiency and strength than 
the German, notwithstanding centuries-long extensive 
use of alcohohe drink.—John Koren. Alcohol and So- 
ciety. p. 10-17. 


Volumes have appeared on the effects of prohibition, 
but there has been an abundance of chaff of opinion and 
very little wheat of fact. By contrast, in a brief article 
in the current number of Mental Hygiene, Dr. Horatio 
Pollock and Miss Edith M. Furbush have threshed out 
of a mass of statistics a considerable quantity of substan- 
tial conclusions regarding the effects as traceable in 
mental disease. The authors have the complete record 
of the cases of alcoholic mental disease admitted to the 
thirteen civil State hospitals of the State of New York 
in the last fifteen years. If one contrasts the three years 
1920-1922, since the coming of prohibition, with the 
three years before the World War, one finds that there 
has been a marked falling off in the number of new cases 
admitted: 541 as compared with 1,601. This is at- 
tributed to two principal causes: First, a change in the 
habits of the people with respect to excessive drinking, 
and second, restrictions on the liquor traffic. The de- 
cline corresponded closely to the lessened percentage of 
intemperate users of alcohol among all the new ad- 
missions, and it is inferred that this furnishes a good 
index of the general decline of excessive drinking.— 
Editorial. New York Times. June 28, 1924. 


II. ECONOMIC RESULTS OF ALCOHOL 
AS A BEVERAGE 


ALCOHOLISM ‘OBSOLETE IN’ MODERN 
INDUSTRY # 


This, in a special sense, is an industrial and com- 
mercial age. The implications, therefore, in the trans- 
formation which has taken place during the industrial 
revolution of the past few years deserve thoughtful con- 
sideration. 


RAILROAD PROHIBITION 


A few years ago, comparatively speaking, it was not 
unusual for newspapers to ascribe railroad wrecks to 
“drunken engineers.” Railroad lines in America have 
increased in fifty years from fifty-three thousand miles 
to two hundred and sixty-four thousand miles. Railroad 
development of every character has gone forward in 
America until today twenty billions of dollars are in- 
vested and two million men are employed at an annual 
compensation of three billion dollars. These railroads 
carry annually more than two thousand million tons of 
freight and more than one thousand million passengers. 
Yet with sixty thousand railroad locomotives being 
driven on all lines throughout America, how many 
wrecks are today charged to drunken engineers, or 
drunken train dispatchers? American railroads will not 
employ an engineer who uses intoxicants either on or off 
duty. This imperative railroad law carries a far greater 
degree of punishment than any local, state or national 


1 By Ernest H. Cherrington. Anti-Saloon League Yearbook, 1922. 
p. 15-19. 


ee SEDGE De RIG iS 


prohibitory law. Even the liquor interests in America 
have long since ceased to defend the personal liberty of 
railroad engineers to drink intoxicants. 

When American railroads modify their rules which 
have stood for a quarter of a century, so as to permit 
engineers, train dispatchers, and telegraph operators to 
use light wines and beer, the American Congress will 
doubtless be ready seriously to consider the advisability 
of modifying the Federal prohibition law. 


IRON AND STEEL VERSUS ALCOHOLISM 


The giant lake freighters, which carry ore from the 
great Superior ore districts, are unloaded at American 
lake ports whence the ore is transported by trains to the 
numerous smelting furnaces of the United States, which 
produce more iron and steel each year than all the rest 
of the world. Comparatively a few years ago, vessels 
were unloaded by laborers with shovels and wheel- 
barrows. The unloading capacity under the old system 
was a hundred tons a day. Today electric machines un- 
load such vessels at the rate of three thousand tons an 
hour. Even greater revolutions than this have taken 
place in the electrical equipment of iron and steel mills. 

Under the old system it was possible for an unskilied 
employee with a brain well soaked with alcohol, to handle 
a shovel and a wheel-barrow. The intricate modern un- 
loading equipment, however, cannot be entrusted to ha- 
bitual users of alcoholic liquors. The same rule applies 
with even greater force to the vast electrical equipment 
now operating the iron and steel mills of the nation. 
When the iron and steel industry of America advocates 
the letting down of prohibition bars, Congress may heed 
the suggestion. 


DEALCOHOLIZING THE MINING INDUSTRY 


During the last ten years modern electrical inventions 
revolutionized the American coal mining industry. Elec- 


PROHIBITION 23 


trical mining machines with two operators today do the 
work which a decade ago required twenty miners. Seven 
hundred and fifty thousand American miners who al- 
ready are producing more than 40 per cent of all the coal 
used in all the countries of the world, cannot begin to 
meet the demands even with the installation of modern 
equipment. Under the old system a miner with a brain 
fairly well soaked with alcohol could produce a few tons 
of coal a day, but the man who operates a modern elec- 
tric mining machine must be sober. 


THE PASSING OF THE “DRUNKEN SAILOR” 


During the past nine years the tonnage of American 
ships clearing American ports increased from 4,793,523 
net tons to 30,180,809 net tons—an increase of more than 
500 per cent. The modern system of electric devices for 
the handling of ship cargoes installed on ships and at 
docks during the last few years has not only eliminated 
the proverbial “drunken sailor,’ but has created an im- 
perative requirement for skilled men with clear brains. 
The old drunken sailor cannot meet the new test. Amert- 
ca’s part in the international commerce of the future can- 
not be jeopardized by compromise with the old system 
under which alcohol played a leading role. 


AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 


Perhaps no series of legislative acts have so aroused 
the manufacturing interests in America to the absolute 
necessity of prohibition as the workmen’s compensation 
laws passed during recent years in all but three states of 
the American union. As a result, millions upon millions 
have been invested in safety devices for the protection of 
life, limb and health of the ten million American manu- 
facturing employees. Safety to workers and insurance 
to manufacturing interests preclude the possibility of 
those interests accepting the hazard which would be in- 
evitable with the return of the beverage liquor traffic. 


24 SELEG PHD Ah DIE» 


THE AuTo TRUCK AND THE OLD TEAMSTER. 


Only a few years ago the vast tonnage of agricultural 
products and of industrial and commercial enterprises in 
America was moved on short hauls by wagons with 
teams and teamsters. Today the great proportion of that 
tonnage is moved by auto trucks. One large truck will 
move more tonnage than could be moved under the old 
system by ten wagons. Under the old system, half- 
drunken drivers might throw the lines around the dash 
board and depend upon the dumb animals drawing the 
load to avoid collision and the ditch. But the intrinsic 
value of more than a million automobile trucks now oper- 
ating in America, to say nothing of the value of the ton- 
nage involved, cannot be entrusted to alcoholized truck 
drivers. 


An AUTOMOBILIZED NATION WitHOUT PROHIBITION 


There are in operation in America ten million auto- 
mobiles. All the rest of the world together employs two 
million automobiles. America therefore may be said to 
be the most thoroughly automobilized nation in the 
world. The great development of the automobile in- 
dustry has taken place in the last decade, during which 
same period prohibition by state legislation was rapidly 
covering the area of the nation. The beverage alcohol 
system in operation in automobilized America today is 
unthinkable. What degree of safety, under alcohol, could 
be vouchsafed to any traveler upon any highway or any 
pedestrian upon any sidewalk of any town or any city? 
If America faces such a situation now, what will other 
countries of the world do in regard to this important 
question, as the use of automobiles rapidly increases? 


INSURANCE RISKS AND PROHIBITION INSEPARABLE 


Perhaps no department of American business has de- 
veloped so rapidly as life insurance. Insurance estates 


PROHIBITION 25 


are rapidly becoming important factors in the financial 
world. In slightly more than thirty years the amount of 
life insurance in America has increased from five billion 
dollars to more than forty-two billion dollars. The num- 
ber of life insurance policies in existence in the United 
States in 1890 was 5,202,475. The number in 1900 was 
14,395,347. The number in 1910 was 29,998,281, while 
the number in 1920 was 64,341,000. Investigations of 
actuaries covering long periods have established a de- 
cided difference between the actual costs of risks on the 
lives of abstainers as against those of non-abstainers. 
With this remarkable increase in the number and amount 
of risks carried by the American insurance companies, 
the greater part of which increase has come during the 
period of state and national prohibition, even the sugges- 
tion of a return to the days of alcoholism is startling. 
What would happen to millions of insurance risks, to the 
insurance companies themselves, and to the vast financial 
interests of America, in which those insurance companies 
now play so significant a part, were the beverage liquor 
traffic to be restored, with its attendant results through 
the use of alcohol, upon millions of policy holders, and 
its even more far-reaching effect upon mortality statis- 
tics that would inevitably result from accidents, disease 
and crime that would follow like an avalanche in the 
wake of alcoholism? 


AERONAUTICS DEMAND SOBRIETY 


The airship is in its infancy, yet the development of 
the past five years is prophetic of a day not many years 
ahead when the airship will be one of the most important 
factors in the life of the world. Leaving out of con- 
sideration all government, army and navy airship ac- 
tivities, the fact remains that during the year 1921 more 
than twelve hundred civilian aeroplanes were operated in 


26 SELEGIED VAR DICLES 


America, traveling more than six million five hundred 
thousand miles and carrying more than two hundred and 
seventy-five thousand passengers. It is not rash to 
prophesy that the airship in ten year’s time will work 
a revolution in industry, commerce, travel, international 
relations and international law. Development of the air- 
ship as a real agency of travel and commerce in America 
under conditions which would be inevitable with the re- 
turn of the beverage liquor traffic, is out of the question. 


ALCOHOLISM AN IMPOSSIBILITY IN THE NEW AGE 


The liquor traffic may have been possible in the agri- 
cultural world in the age of the horse-drawn plow and 
the mule teamster; it is not possible in the age of the 
tractor, the great wheat-header and the auto truck. The 
liquor traffic may have been possible in the days when 
the wood chopper’s ax was the only means of felling 
trees ; it is not possible in the age when electrical opera- 
tions are so essential to the rapidly increasing lumber 
industry. The liquor traffic may have been possible in 
the age of the drunken sailor and the drunken engineer 
and the age when manufacturing concerns were not re- 
sponsible for the health and safety of employees; it is not 
possible in the age of the industrial development which 
has revolutionized railroad operations, the mining indus- 
try, manufacturing interests, international commerce and 
trade activities, and other great industries and enterprises 
which figure in economic progress. The liquor traffic 
may have been possible in the age of the ox-cart, but it 
is not possible in the age of the automobile. The liquor 
traffic may have been possible in the age of the stage 
coach, but it is not possible in the age of the airship. The 
liquor traffic may have been possible in the age of the 
water mill, but it is not possible in the age of the electric 
dynamo. 


PROEIBURTON 2. 27 


ECONOMIC RESUS OF PROHIBITION 
DNB es Le 


The cheaper form of vodka is distilled from potatoes. 
The vodka industry, therefore, required the production 
of vast quantities of potatoes. The Poland potato crop 
had been planted in the spring of 1914, but when the 
war came on, the Emperor of Russia issued his famous 
edict prohibiting the manufacture and sale of all intoxi- 
cating liquors, including vodka. At first this seemed a 
crushing blow to the industry of Poland, but after the 
country had been desolated by war and the ordinary food 
supplies had been exhausted, the people of Poland found 
themselves in possession of a vast harvest of potatoes, 
and these potatoes, no longer valuable for the manufac- 
ture of vodka, provided a supply of food which kept the 
nation alive during the winter which followed. 

Immediately after the taking effect of the edict, the 
savings bank deposits in Russia began to increase at a 
most amazing rate, and this notwithstanding the fact 
that Russia was in the midst of war, with her industries 
disturbed and all her usual business affairs depressed. A 
few figures may be given to illustrate this result of pro- 
hibition in Russia. The savings bank deposits in Russia, 
including Poland, on January 1, 1914, were 240,000,000 
roubles (a rouble being about 50 cents) ; on February 1, 
1914, 233,000,000 roubles; on March 1, 1914, 260,000,000 
roubles. It will be noticed that these figures refer to 
dates before the prohibition edict was issued and also be- 
fore the beginning of the war. The deposits on the cor- 
responding dates one year later, while the war was at its 
height, show the following savings bank deposits in 
Russia. January 1, 1915, 438,000,000 roubles, an increase 
of nearly 100 per cent over the showing of January 1, 
1914; February 1, 1915, 509,000,000 roubles, an increase 


1By Ernest P. Bicknell. Proceedings of the 1916 Conference of 
Charities and Correction. p. 18-19. 


28 SELECTED “ARTICLES 


of over 100 per cent; and March 1, 1915, 737,000,000 
roubles, an increase of almost 200 per cent. 

Americans living in Russia complained with jocular 
bitterness that the result of the prohibition edict had 
greatly complicated and intensified the servant problem 
in their homes. Since it had been common for working- 
men to spend their wages regularly upon vodka the wives 
had been accustomed to seek domestic service. Soon 
after the prohibition edict took effect, a widespread 
exodus occurred on the part of these wives, who gave up 
their domestic service to return home, with the explana- 
tion that their husbands now had money enough to sup- 
port them. 


DRIER EXCUR ETS 


Work and drink do not belong together, especially 
when the work demands alertness, attention, exactness, 
and industry.—John Koren, Alcohol and Society. p. 15. 


All labor expended in producing strong drink is ut- 
terly unproductive; it adds nothing to the wealth of the 
community.—Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations. 


The widespread use of alcoholic beverages has been 
conservatively estimated as causing the loss of 21 per 
cent in the efficiency of the nation’s workers.—Dr. Edwin 
F. Bowers. Alcohol, Its Influence on Mind and Body. 


p. 185. 


In the year 1834 a Parliamentary Committee on In- 
temperance reported that the national loss of productive 
labor through intemperance amounted to £50,000,000 
per annum, and was equal to the loss of one day’s labor 
in six.—John Newton. Our National Drink Bill. p. 115. 


Neal Dow quotes William FE. Gladstone as saying, 
“We have suffered more in our time from intemperance 


PROHIBITION 29 


than from war, pestilence, and famine combined—those 
three great scourges of mankind.”—North American Re- 
view. 139:179. August, 1884. 


Manufacturers generally estimate the loss of produc- 
tive power, due to drunkenness and the inefficiency aris- 
ing from drunkenness, at 8 to 12 per cent of the total 
wages.—Alexander Johnston. Labor’s Cyclopaedia of 
PCH ICOr SCIENCE, CLC.) VOleis, PY 370: 


The resources of the Federation Bank, union labor’s 
financial institution in New York, have increased from 
$500,000 on May 19, 1923, to $3,700,000, and are ex- 
pected to reach the $4,000,000 mark by the end of Jan- 
uary, 1924, according to Peter J. Brady, President. 
—New York Times. December 206, 1923. 


There are more than a million jobs in America closed 
to the man who drinks alcoholic liquors. The railroads 
are not standing alone. Other great industries have come 
to see that alcohol makes only for accidents, inefficiency, 
and waste.—Dr. Edwin F,. Bowers. American Magazine. 


Ours uy, 1010. 


Drink leads to idleness. The business men of our 
country are year by year drawing the line more strictly 
against the use of alcohol by employees. Why? Because 
a clear brain and a steady nerve are required in every im- 
portant avenue of industry, and alcohol befuddles the 
brain and paralyzes the nerves —IVilliam J. Bryan in an 
address delivered in May, 1015. 


Drunkenness and drinking can not be overlooked as 
an important cause of discontent among working people. 
The factory saloon especially may be looked upon as one 
of their greatest curses. Not only does excessive drink- 
ing breed discontent but expenditures for liquor im- 


30 DEORE GERD UARIGUES 


poverish the home of the working man and cause great 
domestic distress.—Carl H. Mote. Industrial Arbitration. 


DOL SH: 


My primary objection to prohibition is not based on 
any argument against it, but on the one argument for it. 
I need nothing more for its condemnation than the only 
thing that is said in its defence. ... The argument 
is that employees work harder, and therefore employers 
get richer. That this idea should be taken calmly, by 
itself, as the test of a problem of liberty, is in itself a 
final testimony to the presence of slavery.—G. K. Ches- 
terton. What I Sawin America. p. 145. 





For every young man in business who does drink, no 
matter how moderately, there is some young man of the 
abstaining kind waiting around the corner for his place 
and who will do his work all the better because he does 
abstain. And employers prefer the abstaining sort. The 
presidents of the two largest railroads in this country 
have each told me personally within the past year[1898] 
that they will no longer employ any man for any position 
on their roads who drinks even moderately. And this is 
growing to be a common custom in all branches of busi- 
ness. Alcohol is becoming more and more each day to 
be regarded in the business world as a positive detriment 
to a man’s greatest usefulness—EHdward W. Bok. Mod- 
Grn LOGUENCE ty Oa eT 2. 





At Philadelphia I used four comparisons, based upon 
an expenditure of the sum of two and a half billions of 
dollars a year-—that is, an average of $25 per capita or 
$125 per family. The comparisons then used showed 
(1) that there is daily spent for drink in the United 
States one-tenth of the sum expended for the carrying 
on of the war now raging in Europe; (2) that the 
amount expended for drink in the United States would 


PROHIBITION 31 


build six Panama canals each year; (3) that the amount 
annually spent for drink is more than three times the 
entire amount spent for education in the United States; 
and (4) that the amount spent for drink is almost double 
the annual expenditures of the federal government. 
Wiliam J. Bryan in an address delivered in May, 1015. 








he . s i P ‘ | pun A rae nt } 
te a ne pce 1 ie. a 






oa 1 


SD a hs ity He Halas Ay ve na ny ‘La Spied ‘adhd 
re 


er WATE fil Dy lt abi; a ate a, OR $i) a ‘gir ty 
cotta an DRE AE yor, tat Aieele: ieee 
he ie 7" e , a i 


’ 





4 ‘ \ ty ie ct W « Lal 
phat aby Dane) ute aching Ce as Rimintant bis 
) ty ; “ ) : - 1) b ‘» ~ 
‘ en vt eis ¥ rt ‘ 
+h he rahe ‘Bi at oh? : tt ae ‘sd bres meag y’ ' 
r ; ' 
‘ : P 
‘ a . A. 4 
4 ‘apa ay ia) h fee pie stan aes 
ar \ 4 ; 
4 i if u% 
aa) Bae | A ; 
h “hal 2%) i Y 
4 5 ) ; 
é ith 
. 
ite a: 
‘ , 2 
i \ , “4 
iy R 
» 4 ‘ % t 
bq 
, L 
= ae yaa ’ 
' 
“ *t ‘ 
' 
v ' | ie i 
i n A ret fu 
’ . | A ue 
4 A UE e | 
404 4 
Yous 
Le 
ah bak “7 5 ve : 
i \ es i 
> 
i tae, ls ba} 
J * 
¥ ‘ 
“sy ' 
rs ah : ‘ 
: a 
r .t. ‘ ih 
{ 7. i i 
4 4 
‘i ? é ; § dhe: 
e 
v r 
1 
4 * iF 
Fi 
4 
‘ 4 ‘ 
a : e 
4 
o 5 1. 
= V4 - 
ft 
é 
" { i” 
| S4 { Pin feat o 
oe j Neiey 4 i " 
i i ih neo a 4 4 ¥ ‘he 
t at oY , be 
ri a‘ y y se * r Ky “a 
‘ i 
i : AP ; 
¢ *f =“ + 5 
A : ee pee Sih 
) Mh ee idee 
( y 7“! : 174 ? 
N lit | jae 
: ine . ft By 
' 7 vy | i y a v4 
A ¢ i} i ; 7] 4 
PER tear ee ie 
‘ . i ‘f See = 
. is i 
‘ r Fe 
Ty ve rs by 5 4 ie 
, | it gee | edie ae 
ad i i i } 1 Sain (eee i ein’ «Vitae 
rh ‘ 
t ss 4 ‘P| ve. r iy 
j my i . 
, roa | 4 d 
7 4 
4 a 
. ‘) ‘ ‘ i Joa 
‘ i 
ay - 
; ‘ epee + yas PM 
( i 
y soy w 


2 : c ; bay = 
’ ‘gy 4 i we ee 
2) J ‘4 . y ids = Pe) P| wawy | diated OO ¢ ot i pe < 


lie OL TICAL RESUS OR TALCOMOLE 
AS A BEVERAGE 


RUM REBELLIONS PAST AND: PRESENT? 


A rebellion is an organized attempt to forcibly resist 
the government. A rum rebellion is an attempt of the 
liquor interests to nullify the Constitution, or the laws, 
or to defy them, instead of changing them by the orderly 
processes of government. Liquor is now and always has 
been in rebellion against government control. 

The first historic rum rebellion, commonly called The 
Whisky Rebellion of western Pennsylvania, occurred in 
1794. Distilling whisky was the chief industry of that 
section. The price of the finished product was a shilling 
a gallon, and the tax proposed was seven cents a gallon. 
The whisky dealers rebelled at the imposition of the tax. 
They declared it was an interference with a legitimate 
business and an infringement upon their personal liberty. 
Those who counselled obedience to the law were visited 
with gross insults. Officers were assaulted ; many people 
were killed. An attempt was made by the liquor dealers 
to call out the militia in their behalf, so as to involve so 
many in the crime of resistance that the government 
would not attempt to punish the insurrection. A number 
of people in Pittsburgh incurred the displeasure of the 
whisky dealers because they counselled obedience to the 
law, and the city was threatened with destruction. The 
governor failed to meet the situation promptly and Presi- 
dent Washington made a requisition of thirteen thousand 
militia from Pennsylvania and adjoining states to sup- 
press the rebellion. When the whisky insurgents realized 


1 By Wayne B. Wheeler. Forum. 65: 473-83. May, 1921. 


34. bol eof CAPS MMR CS less 


that the government was in earnest, they capitulated, and 
two of the leaders were tried and convicted of treason. 

Many of the families involved in the affair left the 
section and settled in the mountains of Kentucky, and the 
names of some famous moonshiners in Kentucky today 
are the same as those of certain leaders of the Pennsyl- 
vania Whisky Rebellion. 

The attitude of liquor toward law has always been 
one of rebellion. The liquor traffic has defied every regu- 
lative, restrictive and prohibitory law placed on the 
statute books, and the present open rebellion of the traf- 
fic against the Constitution of the United States is only 
the final step in its long fight against the orderly processes 
of government. 

During the War of 1812, when the government felt 
the necessity of increasing its revenue to sustain it in the 
extra burdens it was obliged to carry, a small tax in com- 
parison to that which is now borne by the traffic, was laid 
upon the liquor trade. At the close of the war, the liquor 
dealers compelled Congress to remove this excise tax 
which had been levied to support the War of 1812. The 
inside historic facts concerning the repeal of the tax re- 
flect no credit upon the methods used by the trade to se- 
cure immunity. 

The unpatriotic attitude of the liquor traffic was re- 
vealed during the days of the Civil War. When the gov- 
ernment was torn and bleeding at every pore, and the 
trade knew that the nation required money in order to 
continue the struggle, it reversed its attitude taken at the 
close of the War of 1812, and made a seductive plea for 
increased taxation on the trade. Prohibition sentiment 
had been increasing, and the trade knew that the best 
way to buy continuance of life was by paying what was 
then considered a liberal license. When once this policy 
was fastened on the government the liquor dealers real- 
ized the advantage it gave them, and they have since used 
it as their chief weapon against prohibition. Lincoln 


PROHIBITION 35 


knew the danger that would lie in the liquor revenue, and 
he foresaw how it would dull the conscience of the 
people, therefore he signed the bill that brought it with 
great reluctance, and only with the understanding that 
the measure would be repealed after the war. 

When the smoke had lifted from the battle fields, and 
when the din of battle had subsided into the sobs and 
moans of war-made widows and orphans, it was found 
that the liquor traffic had entrenched itself in the state 
and Federal revenue laws, and had repealed state pro- 
hibitory laws save those of Maine alone. The good work 
of half a century done by earnest temperance folk had 
been undone. 

The present slogan of the wets, “Prohibition was put 
over” has in it not a ghost of truth, but had the drys cried 
for the past fifty years “the liquor traffic was put over 
while the country bled for freedom and for unity in the 
Civil War,” they would have had the facts on their side. 

True to its colors the liquor traffic created scandal in 
army operations in Cuba and the Philippines, and in the 
army camps during the Spanish-American War the can- 
teen outrage was its contribution toward promoting the 
morale of our troops. 

The same demoralizing and degrading forces that had 
played traitor during the Civil War were at work to dis- 
rupt our army, and another chapter in the story of the 
Rum Rebellion was written in our national history. 

Curbs, checks, regulations have been continuously 
ignored by the liquor traffic. It has persistently refused 
to obey the excise laws in New York, Chicago, San 
Francisco, and in practically all of the large cities, until 
public sentiment compelled their enforcement or until it 
was prohibited. It has always been a notorious fact that 
saloons have refused to obey the Sunday closing law. It 
has been the proud boast of many of their owners that 
they threw away their door keys when they opened their 
establishments, Municipal scandals have grown out of 


30 SELEGO DEA RLS 


the fact that corrupt politicians and their official pawns, 
mayors and police heads, have refused to enforce Sunday 
closing laws, while the laws against selling to minors and 
intoxicated persons were brazenly ignored in the past. 
The attitude of the liquor interests during the World 
War was characteristic. The government appealed to the 
people to save food, fuel and transportation facilities to 
win the war. The liquor interests continued to waste 
food by the ton, while the people saved it by the pound. 
They used the cars and the coal needed to send food and 
supplies to the front to ship their beer and debauch the 


people, when the country, nay the world, needed a sober __ 


manhood and womanhood with all faculties and powers 
intact. They allied themselves with the disloyal forces 
in the government. The German-American Alliance se- 
cured a charter from the Federal government. Its ac- 
tivities, however, put it under suspicion and the govern- 
ment investigated. The testimony given before the Sen- 
ate Judiciary Committee showed that this organization 
was disloyal, and it was also proved that the United 
States Brewers’ Association, and brewers known to be 
pro-German, furnished much money used for German 
propaganda as well as for propaganda against Prohibi- 
tion. 

The representative of the brewers on the witness 
stand admitted that the National Association of Com- 
merce and Labor, interested primarily in combatting 
prohibition, was to operate through the German-Ameri- 
can Alliance, with the consent of the president and vice- 
president of the Alliance, and that the funds for the 
propaganda emanated in reality from the United States 
Brewers’ Association. 

The German-American Alliance Charter was revoked 
by the Congress without a dissenting vote. Following 
this the United States Senate ordered an investigation of 
the entire corrupt practices of the brewers and of their 
political activities. Over seven thousand pages of sworn 


PROHIBITION 37 


testimony were taken. The committee found everyone 
of the charges in Senate Resolution 307 were substan- 
tially sustained: 


That the said United States Brewers’ Association, brew- 
ing companies, and allied interests have in recent years made 
contributions to political campaigns on a great scale without 
precedent in the political history of the country and in vio- 
lation of the laws of the land; 

That in order to control legislation in the State and Na- 
tion, they have exacted pledges from candidates to office, in- 
cluding Congressmen and United States Senators, before 
election, such pledges being on file; 

That, in order to influence public opinion to their ends, 
they have heavily subsidized the public press and stipulated 


» when contracting for advertising space with the newspapers 


that a certain amount be editorial space, the literary material 
for the space being provided from the brewers’ central office in 
New York; 

That, in order to suppress expressions of opinion hostile 
to their trade and political interests, they have set in oper- 
ation an extensive system of boycotting of American manu- 
facturers, merchants, railroads, and other interests; 

That for the furthering of their political enterprises, they 
have erected a political organization to carry out their pur- 
poses; 

That they were allied to powerful suborganizations, 
among them the German-American Alliance, whose charter 
was revoked by the unanimous vote of Congress; the Na- 
tional Association of Commerce and Labor; and the Manu- 
facturers and Dealers’ Associations; and that they have 
their ramifications in other organizations neutral in character; 

That they have on file political surveys of states, counties 
and districts tabulating the men and forces for and against 
them, and that they have paid large sums of money to citi- 
zens of the United States to advocate their cause and inter- 
ests, including some in the government employ; 

That they have defrauded the Federal Government by 
applying to their political corruption funds money which 
should have gone to the Federal Treasury in taxes. 


Step by step we have shown the rebelliousness and 
disloyalty of the now outlawed liquor traffic up to the 
adoption of Federal prohibition. It defied the govern- 
ment in 1794; it was a tax-dodger in 1812; it took ad- 
vantage of its country’s necessity in the Civil War to en- 
trench itself in public life; in the Spanish-American War 
it debauched our troops; in the World War it was pro- 


38 SHEER GCUEDEARLICLES 


German and anti-American. Is it not logical that today 
it should be in open rebellion against the Constitution of 
the United States and should incite to lawlessness and 
encourage nullification ? 

When two-thirds of Congress submitted the Eight- 
eenth Amendment and fifteen-sixteenths of the states 
ratified it, people who had not studied the history of the 
liquor traffic thought the liquor interests would submit 
and obey the law until it was changed in a legal and 
orderly manner. Instead of doing this, the nine national 
liquor organizations continued their work against pro- 
hibition, and five new national liquor organizations came 
into the field to help. 

“The Association Opposed to National Prohibition” 
has its headquarters in New York. It has boasted that 
it had $1,000,000,000 subscribed to see to it that the 
Eighteenth Amendment should not become operative. 
The “Association Opposed to the Prohibition Amend- 
ment” has its headquarters in Washington. It boasts 
that no liquor dealer is eligible, but its program is as fol- 
lows, according to its own statement: 

1. To get the Volstead Act out of the law. 

Zz. Vo, permit) févery (state “under the: conenieus 
clause to pass its own enforcement act. 

It also states in a paragraph of its prospectus: “If 
the majority of voters do not favor the law and if those 
against it organize so that they may be counted, the law 
will be repealed and the regulatory power under the 
prohibition amendment will be left to each state under 
the concurrent clause.’ The acknowledged program of 
these two organizations is simply a defiance of the Eight- 
eenth Amendment. The New York organization frankly 
admits that its purpose is to prevent the Eighteenth 
Amendment from becoming operative. 

The Washington organization proposes to repeal the 
Volstead Act and thus allow the wet states to remain wet 
in spite of the Constitution, and the dry states to enact 


PROHIBITION 30 


and enforce their own laws.. No one can gainsay the fact 
that this means rebellion against national prohibition 
as written into the Constitution of the United States. 

The campaign to overthrow the Iighteenth Amend- 
ment by other than legal methods is as follows: 

The Association Opposed to National Prohibition 
planned to create a public sentiment by a false propa- 
ganda that would coerce the Supreme Court into a de- 
cision in their favor. This was the statement in their 
confidential prospectus : 


The members of the United States Supreme Court are 
extremely sensitive to public opinion. They must be made 
to feel the weight of public opinion that has been raised all 
over the country by this attempt to prohibit by Constitutional 
Amendment, the natural and inherent rights of free men ina 
free country. That sentiment can only be crystallized by 
the expenditure of a very considerable sum of money. 


It planned to elect a Congress to repeal or destroy the 
laws to make the Eighteenth Amendment enforceable 
This is legislative rebellion. 

It planned to elect public officials, bound by duty to 
enforce the law, who would encourage law-breakers in 
their lawlessness. 

Governor Edwards, backed by the liquor interests, 
determined to capture the national convention of his own 
party in the interest of outlawed liquor and to make his 
own state as wet as the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, he 
met his Waterloo, and New Jersey is now again in the 
Union. 

The Prosecuting Attorney at Iron River, Michigan, 
headed a rebellion against the Federal officers who seized 
liquor in that community. In the name of the law, this 
officer of the law attempted to discredit faithful Federal 
officers. The legality of the seizure of the liquor in ques- 
tion was decided in the Federal court upholding the 
Federal officers, and this rebellion, too, was nipped in the 


bud. 


40 SELECTED UARTICLES 


Chicago wets joined the rum rebellion, and would 
have succeeded in part, because of the indifference of the 
city administration, and the United States District Attor- 
ney who refused to do his duty; but faithful Federal en- 
forcement officials, and the courageous Attorney General — 
of Illinois, Mr. Brundage, have curbed the law-breakers 
even with the odds against them. 

San Francisco’s liquor hosts rebelled, and its wet 
mayor boasted of the ready flow of liquor during the 
Democratic National Convention. The rebellious liquor 
traffic corrupted a number of Federal enforcement off- 
cials. The Federal Enforcement Department has taken 
drastic measures to reorganize the forces and suppress 
the rebellion at the Golden Gate. 

New York, in her liquor delirium, not only defied the 
law, but became the headquarters of forged permits and 
bribed Federal inspectors and agents. Practically all of 
the Federal appointees for the enforcement of prohibi- 
tion in New York had to be discharged. A new force is 
now at work, and time will tell whether its members can 
stand the test of liquor bribes. 

Milwaukee naturally takes part in the rum rebellion. 
A recent Federal Grand Jury in this district took occa- 
sion to use its official position to become propagandists 
for the outlawed liquor interests and applied to Congress 
to repeal the Law Enforcement Code. 

Parts of Pennsylvania, true to the spirit of 1794, are 
in rebellion against the enforcement of any Federal law 
prohibiting the liquor traffic. Pennsylvania, New York, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey have vied 
with each other in their liquor lawlessness for years. 
They represent the black belt of the liquor rebellion. The 
present outlook, however, for the passage of state en- 
forcement codes in four of these commonwealths is hope- 
ful. With their passage will come the dawn of a new 
era for law and order. 

A band of unscrupulous patent and proprietary medi- 


PROHIBITION Al 


cine manufacturers and venders are joining the rebellion, 
with the cloak of respectability wrapped about them. A 
relentless warfare is being carried on against these sub- 
stitutes for booze. 

Public officers who take an oath of office to support 
the Constitution and enforce laws enacted pursuant 
thereto, and then make the enforcement of the law a 
mockery by their indifference and their public utter- 
ances, and a farce by inadequate fines, are particeps crim- 
inis to the rebellion. 

Politicians who use their influence to secure illegal 
permits to withdraw liquor are guilty of aiding the re- 
bellion. 

Those sleek money-grabbers who quietly manage the 
bootleg and forged permit system, who bribe officers and 
subsidize press agents to condemn the law, are the chief 
criminals in the rebellion. They should be singled out 
for special punishment, and if there is a place on earth 
willing to receive such traitors they should be deported. 

Newspapers and magazines that become propagan- 
dists for law-breakers and encourage defiance of law, are 
aiders and abettors of the insurrection. There is a place 
always in this nation for those opposed to any law who 
are ready to use legal methods to repeal it, but there is 
no place under the Stars and Stripes for those who defy 
the law and encourage anarchy. 

Mr. William Jennings Bryan has paid his compli- 
ments to those so-called American citizens who go to 
Cuba, Bimini, the Bahamas, and other foreign territory, 
and use it as a base for defying the laws of their country, 
in this characteristic language: 


Statistics show that British territory on the north and just 
off the east coast of the United States is being used as a base 
for the wholesale smuggling of intoxicating liquors in this 
country. There is no more excuse for the use of the ad- 
jacent territory for conspiracies against the Prohibition law— 
a law carrying out the Constitution and sustained by the 
Supreme Court—than for the use of such territory for con- 
spiracies against any other law of the land. Piracy would 


42 SELECTEDVARTICLES 


not be given protection under the British flag. Why should 
smuggling? 

The easiest way to punish such citizens is to withdraw 
citizenship from them when they leave the country for the 
purpose of violating their country’s laws. If they violate 
the laws while in this country they can be punished as crim- 
inals. Why should they receive the protection of their gov- 
ernment while conspiring against their country’s statutes? If 
they leave for that purpose, or while away become law- 
breakers, their return should be barred as we bar the en- 
trance of any other criminal. 

No government can live if it permits a rebellion to 
continue within its borders. A rum rebellion is as bad 
or worse than any other rebellion. Those who partici- 
pate in it not only menace the fundamental principles of 
geovernment, but they fight for a cause which debauches 
and demoralizes the citizenship of the Republic. Any 
citizen or group of citizen, or public officials who defy 
the law must be regarded as public enemies. No one in 
a democracy has any excuse for rebelling against the law 
because it interferes with his personal habits. In a mon- 
archy those who defy the laws, even though they have 
no part in making them, are summarily dealt with. Ina 
democracy, where every citizen has his chance to help 
frame the laws by majority rule, and can work for their 
repeal if so inclined, the obligation of loyalty and obedi- 
ence to law is infinitely greater even than in a monarchy. 

Rebellions must be suppressed—by force if necessary. 
Force, however, will not be necessary in order to sup- 
press the rum rebellion because an increasing number of 
those who oppose prohibition agree that it should be en- 
forced until it is repealed in an orderly manner. But 
the drys are confident that each year of enforced prohibi- 
tion will prove its benefits to the people so that the op- 
position will gradually die out. 

It is to be hoped that the government will not only 
continue and increase its activity to enforce the law, but 
also give its encouragement to a great patriotic campaign 
fo créate a larger respect for law. Obedience ftaniaw 
needs more emphasis at this time. This is a legitimate 


PROHIBITION 43 


governmental function. Unless law is respected and en- 
forced the government itself must fail. All of our per- 
sonal and property rights are dependent upon the honest 
enforcement of law. Lincoln well said: “To violate the 
law is to tear the charter of your own and your children’s 
liberty.” Obedience to law is liberty. Violation of law 
is anarchy. This nation must choose which course it will 
follow. 


et DING il els OaVeces 


Certain anti-alcohol people were troubled when they 
found a peculiar little bottle in the hands of school boys 
in Ohio. The bottle itself is three inches high and an 
inch and a quarter across. It has a cork stopper, and 
the stopper has a bone top to it. A glass tube goes 
through the stopper, down into the contents of the bottle. 
A rubber tube stretches up from the top of the stopper. 
On the end of the tube is a bone mouthpiece through 
~which the liquid in the bottle may be sucked up. The 
whole combination was packed in a small box which it 
fitted exactly, and on the box was a card which gave the 
name and address of the saloon from which it came. 

This bottle had passed from hand to hand and from 
mouth to mouth until the teacher found it. At that time 
it was half full of whisky. And what was the object 
of the bottle and its whisky? The following bit of his- 
tory answers the question, 

Several years ago the State Liquor Dealers of Ohio 
were gathered in Wirthwein Hall, Columbus, and one of 
the speakers had for his subject “How to build up the 
saloon business.” Among others things he said, “The 
success of our business is dependent largely upon the 
creation of appetite for drink. Men who drink liquor, 
like others, will die, and if there is no appetite created, 
our counters will be empty, as will be our coffers. Our 
children will go hungry, or we must change our business 


1 By Frances Gulick Jewett. The Next Generation. p. 147-51. 


44 SELECTED ARTICLES 


to that of some other more remunerative. The open field 
for the creation of appetite is among the boys. After men 
are grown and their habits formed, they rarely ever 
change in this regard. It will be needful, therefore, that 
missionary work be done among the boys, and I make 
the suggestion, gentlemen, that nickels expended in 
treats to the boys now will return in dollars to your tills 
after the appetite has been formed.” 

It was as if the man had said, “My friends, unless we 
can help ruin the boys by creating in them an appetite 
for alcohol, we ourselves must go out of business. We 
must destroy them for the sake of our individual pocket- 
books.” 

The man supposed he was talking to liquor dealers 
alone. He did not know that an anti-alcohol man was in 
the meeting, and that he was taking down shorthand 
notes of everything said. From his own point of view 
the speaking delegate was quite right. Unless boys can 
be secured,—unless they will consent to damage their 
own brains,—the liquor business of the world is doomed. 
Dr. Alexander Lambert shows this in a table of figures 
which he made out. While in Bellevue Hospital, New 
York City, he met and examined so many persons ruined 
by alcohol that he decided to find out how old they were 
when they began to drink. He received full answers 
from two hundred and fifty-eight persons. The table 
itself tells the rest of the story. 


AGE WHEN 258 PERSONS BEGAN THE ALCOHOL HABIT 


Betore the! ace tai pOwmereane dk Wak ian eee ee 4 
Between  G¥and 2 me ee nen ae ee ee 13 
Betweeniit2 (andvaG7e rc rtice Watts. Phen ete 60 
Betweenjl16:rand 22 Wavemakers te) tarae ral hese 102 
Between (2r ang 430 tee ee rate een pe ener aE 
Afterithe avevot aC ayers ete nt ite eee 8 


By this table we see that 69 per cent of those who had 
the alcohol habit, began to acquire it before they were 
twenty-one years old, and that only eight persons out of 
two hundred and fifty-eight began to use alcohol after 
they were thirty; that is, after they were fully mature. 


PROHIBITION 45 


It is evident, then, that if a boy can keep free from the 
habit during the wonderful years between fourteen and 
twenty, he has a good chance of escaping altogether. 
Those who sell alcohol are bright enough to know this. 
They know that if they wish to continue their own pe- 
culiar kind of business, they must make sure of the boys. 
Their motto, therefore, seems to be “Gather in the boys 
and ruin them.” 
x a x ** ** xk 

It is as a moral question and a social problem that the 
author of the above article has discussed these two inci- 
dents, the incident of the bottle found in the possession 
of school boys, and the address at the state convention 
of liquor dealers. The legal significance of these inci- 
dents may be understood if we know that the laws of 


Ohio have included for many years the following sec- 
S10) Sentai i ate 


Section 12958. Whoever, being the keeper or person in charge 
of a saloon, beer-garden, or other place where intoxicating 
liquor is sold or offered for sale, knowingly permits a minor 
under eighteen years of age, not a member of his family, to 
enter and remain therein except on lawful business or accom- 
panied by his parent or guardian, shall be fined not less than 
five dollars nor more than twenty-five dollars, or imprisoned 
not more than ten days, or both. 

Section 12960. Whoever buys intoxicating liquor for, or 
furnishes it to a minor to be drunk by him, unless given by 
a physician in the regular line of his practice, shall be fined 
not less than ten dollars nor more than one hundred dollars 
or imprisoned not less than ten days nor more than thirty days, 
or both. 

Section 12961. Whoever sells intoxicating liquor to a minor, 
excepting on the written order of his parent, guardian, or 
family physician, shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars 
nor more than one hundred dollars and imprisoned not less 
than five days nor more than thirty days. 


BRIER EXCERPTS 


History bears out the assertion that whenever restric- 
tion or prohibition of the liquor traffic is attempted, re- 
sistance, either politically or by force, is attempted. 


40 SELECTEDVARLTICEES 


When South Carolina sought a solution of this trouble- 
some problem, and tried to solve it by passage of the 
Dispensary Law, the inevitable conflict with the whiskey 
element was expected, nor has the expectation been with- 
out fulfilment—Governor Benjamin R. Tillman. North 
American Review. 158: 513. May, 1894. 


Both Senator Harding and Mr. Cox coquetted [in 
the presidential campaign of 1920] with the subject [of 
prohibition]; but both of them said that this eighteenth 
amendment of the constitution would be enforced by 
them*1f they,were elected’) .t..\Theretcan be noedonbt 
at all that much of this new courage of the politicians 1s 
owing to the fact that the great centres of political cor- 
ruption, the public-houses or saloons, had disappeared 
from the scene.—Sir Arthur Newsholme. British Jour- 
nal of Inebriety. 19:98. January, 1922. 


The recent experience of Chicago with Sunday clos- 
ing is a striking example of unenforced state liquor legis- 
lation. The spectacle of one jury after another refusing 
to convict in the face of the plainest evidence is not at- 
tractive. A high regard for the sanctity of law is espe- 
cially necessary if life under urban conditions is to be 
tolerable. The present [1909] state of much of our liquor 
legislation is productive of anything but a law-abiding 
spirit— Augustus R. Hatton. Western Reserve Univer- 
sity Bulletin. 12: 114-15. November, 1909. 


In 1914 the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and 
Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church made 
an investigation to find out just how many more had paid 
the federal license to sell liquors than had paid state li- 
censes in wet states. There was an excess of 3,204 in 
Michigan, 2,105 in Rhode Island, 6,064 in Ohio, 11,150 
in New York state, and 10,046 in Illinois. Practically 
every one of the people were doing a bootleg or blind- 
pig business. In every case they had no right to operate 


PROHIBITION 47 


without a state license. In Pennsylvania at that time it 
is estimated that there were 30,000 blind-pigs.—Waulson 
and Pickett. The Case for Prohibition. p. 85-6. 


The brewers and saloons have for years selected the 
members of the Legislature, not only in Fort Wayne, but 
in all the cities of the state. Men are selected who can 
be relied upon by liquor and who also can be relied upon 
to obey the party and the boss, and rarely have the brew- 
ers selected the wrong man. . . . After years of sin- 
cere effort towards constructive reforms in government, 
and particularly large city government, I have become 
firmly convinced that the American saloon is a political 
evil which we can no longer tolerate. I know that it lies 
at the base of all our political turpitude. It cannot be 
regulated; it must be destroyed.—Theodore F. Thieme. 
Liquor and Public Utilities in Indiana Politics. May 10, 


IQI5. 


The liquor traffic has always been lawless and it 
seems to be the “nature of the beast.’’ A few vears ago 
Chicago had 7,151 saloons, each paying $1,000 yearly 
license. At the same time an investigation showed that 
there were some 2,500 disorderly houses, drug stores, 
and other dives where liquors were sold without license. 
The chief of police with the approval of the mayor noti- 
fied 1,800 of these places that they must pay license. The 
licensed saloons were all lawless: they ignored the Sun- 
day closing law, and the prohibition [by law] of the sale 
of liquor to drunkards and minors, and kept their back 
doors open [for business in violation of the law] on elec- 
tion day and holidays —Duwuncean C, Milner. New Repub- 
he. 32:109. October 18, 1922. 


A sketch of the dispensary, even a brief one, would 
not be complete without mention of Vincent Chicco, the 
kinewossthemeblind gtiversitin 70 sae Ghiccoy breaks? the 
law every day. He knows it. The people of Charleston 


48 DELEGTEDGAR TICLES 


know it. Chicco breaks the law with the consent of the 
police authorities of the city. If the city police should be 
present when the state constables come down upon 
Chicco, they would not only not render them assistance, 
but would probably be glad to see them defied. Such is 
the condition all through South Carolina. ... With the 
present scandalous system, entailing political appoint- 
ments distasteful to all self-respecting people of the state 
and creating a contempt for all laws, South Carolina 
will continue to be one of the lawless states—Freeman 


Tilden. World Today. 11: 743. July, 1900. 


We have been slow as a people to realize that the 
man who drinks is a source of corruption in our political 
life, but at last we are fully awake to the fact that the 
saloon that caters to his tastes is a sinister power in 
politics. It provides him a social and political club house. 
The city and county committees of his political party 
meet in its back parlor. Candidates for office are nomi- 
nated in its barroom. ... No one denies that the Liquor 
Dealers’ Association controls, or did control, legislation 
in several of our states, and it has been often asserted 
and not infrequently believed that Congress has done the 
bidding of the Whisky Ring. Public opinion has become 
convinced that the saloon and its supporters are a cor- 
rupting force in our political and social life and for that 
reason alone, laying aside all other arguments, the manu- 
facture and sale of intoxicating liquor must be forbidden 
throughout the United States—IJmogen Bb. Oakley. An- 
nals of the American Academy. 109: 166-7. September, 


1923. 


Considering the experience we have had for years in 
Ohio, I am of the opinion that we will never again have 
a fair square election in the state of Ohio until we put 
the liquor interest, as an interest, out of politics, and I 
am convinced we can only put it out of politics by put- 
ting it out of business. For years no political party has 


PROHIBITION 49 


been able, nor will any political party ever again be able 
to go before the people on important issues involving 
fundamental principles of government, the perpetuation 
of the traditions of party and country, upon which per- 
chance the destiny of the state, the nation, the rights of 
citizens and even the liberty of men may depend, with the 
liquor in that business, as it has been with those in- 
terested in that business, as a class, insisting upon its 
right to control. The experience of the last campaign 
more particularly, however, than any of the many, many 
others convinces me that this situation is intolerable-— 
Honorable H. M. Daugherty. Columbus, O. Pamphlet 
No. 1, p. 3. November 29, 1916. 


Earlier than slavery and most persistent of all issues 
attacking the right of the majority to determine the so- 
cial policy of the Government were the liquor problems. 
Disguised under various forms of camouflage, posing as 
advocates of personal liberty, resisters to unjust taxation, 
supporters of vested and traditional rights, those who 
profit by the degradation of their fellow-men have broken 
the law and assailed the law-making power since the na- 
tion was founded. The first great rebellion of the rum 
interests occurred in Western Pennsylvania in 1794, 
when 7,000 armed and provisioned men, after two years 
of violence, murders and riots, marched upon the city of 
Pittsburgh. They were dispersed before reaching Fort 
Pitt. The rebellion rapidly developed until all law was 
disregarded. The insurgents were believed to number 
16,000 men. The United States judge for the district 
appealed to President .Washington, who in person 
traveled to Pennsylvania, put himself at the head 
of troops from New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and 
Pennsylvania, organized them and then placed General 
Harry Lee in command.... From that time until the pre- 
sent the attitude of the liquor interests has been against 
any laws that restricted or limited the liquor trade.— 
Wayne B. Wheeler. Current History. 18:7. August, 1923. 


50 SELEG TE DEAR SIGCLES 


When we looked into the saloon question before, the 
criticism was made that we only examined the down 
town barrooms. So we covered a wide territory this 
time. We visited 1,630 saloons a week ago today. (Sun- 
day, December 10, 1911). . . . Out of 345 saloons 
visited in the heart of Cleveland we found only two 
closed) 7.07. "In the outlying Mdistricts? “ouneaaien 
found 95 per cent of the barrooms doing a humming 
business (in violation of the state law). . . . Out 
of 1,630 saloons visited by the investigators, 1,534 were 
found to be wide open and doing a thriving trade (in 
violation of the state law). ... Out of the 96 saloons 
found closed, fifty-four were seen between two and three 
o'clock in the afternoon when business is dull. If these 
fifty-four had been visited after five o’clock in the after- 
noon, doubtless we would have had almost a unanimous 
report... . We were surprised to find many young girls 
in these bar rooms on the sabbath evening (in violation 
of the state law)... . Throughout the city saloon cash 
registers were clicking lustily and music (in violation of 
a city ordinance) was going at full blast in not a few 


places. ... Children were lugging out filled bottles, prob- 
ably to take home to their parents... . And one thing 


was very noticeable to our investigators. The police 
were conspicuous by their absence from the saloon 
neighborhoods. . . . In most of the places there were 
from three to fifty customers.—kev. Dr. H. W. Pilot, 
Chairman of the Baptist Vice Committee, m a report to 
the Baptist Brotherhood of Cleveland. Cleveland Plain 
Dealer. December 18, 19g1T. 


Determination to carry on their warfare against Sun- 
day saloons, and a resolve to make officials enforce the 
Sunday closing law, was manifest last night at the an- 


nual banquet of the Baptist Brotherhood. . . . The 
report covered the work of the brotherhood for fifteen 
months. . . . “Mayor Newton D. Baker informed 


3) 


us,’ says the report in quoting the chief executive, that 


PROHIBITION 5I 


“T will ask you not to send me communications as the 
Baptist Brotherhood—I don’t care how many of you co- 
operate—because it seems to me that the Baptist Brother- 
hood hasn’t any more right, as a Baptist Brotherhood, to 
suggest measures for the city government, than the city 
government would have to suggest measures for the 
fevmliGu POteatiew bad liste toLnerboodis “sins We 
called on Fred Kohler (Chief of Police) and gave him 
a copy of affidavits and statements which he threw in the 
waste basket. We asked the chief’why he did not close 
the saloons on Sunday, to which he gave no direct an- 
swer. During the first hour of this interview Chief 
Kohler was very abusive and refused to give any re- 
spectful consideration to our request. Later he indicated 
to us his views on the subject, saying, ‘the laws are like 
drugs and should be kept on the shelves, just as a doctor 
keeps drugs, to be used only when necessary.’ ” 

In the five cases tried before Mayor J. R. Migenires éf 
Fast Cleveland, the report says, the higher court sus- 
tained the ruling of the Mayor’s court as to the guilt of 
the offenders and the fines were upheld.—Cleveland 
Plain Dealer. February 19, 19173. 





IVY SOCIAL, RESULTS OF ALCOHOE 
AS) A BEN BRAGE 


alte nea) NIUE) Ges ee, VA Ne VLC 


Drunkenness is the monarch of all human vices. 
Other evils are its mere satellites. It permeates and 
poisons and rots every department of life and every 
avenue and faculty of the human body. Once in a dis- 
tant age intoxicating liquor was the supposed instrument 
of fellowship and good cheer. It is now the debased 
and adulterated instrument for the exploitation for profit 
and the promotion of personal vices. It has grown to 
astounding proportions. The longer it continues, the 
greater its evil and the more potent its strength. It has 
entrenched itself with human avarice and become its ally 
to exploit the pitiable weakness of humanity to accumu- 
late fortunes. The men who have made it their instru- 
ment of pecuniary gain have assumed to control political 
parties, to threaten candidates, to decide elections, to 
administer civil government, to make new laws, to pro- 
mote profitable evils and contemptuously to break exist- 
ing laws they cannot repeal. 

The liquor interests have written their own indict- 
ment, and accumulated the evidence justifying their own 
extinction. The breweries have been asked for years to 
cease to promote the disreputable and irresponsible sa- 
loon keeper. They have been asked to clean up the vicious 
resorts that have been a bane and a menace to decent 
communities. Their reply was a sneer and the statement 
that it was the brewer’s business to make and sell beer. 
Whisky has been denounced as a dangerous beverage 
and restraints demanded for more than half a century. 


1 By Senator Lawrence Y. Sherman. Congressional Record. 55: 5645-6. 
August 1, 1917. 


54 SELECTED AKT ICCES 


The answer has been opposition or abuse of those 
who would regulate as well as those who would prohibit. 
All who have asked that present laws be obeyed have 
been stigmatized as fanatics, and fresh infractions of 
regulatory laws have followed every effort for their en- 
forcement. Wine growers have been advised of the 
evils gathering about their heads. They, too, have been 
deaf to the developing hostilities of this generation to 1n- 
toxicating liquor. If they are caught in the whirlpool of 
an aroused and righteous indignation, they will but suffer 
the penalty resulting from their indifference or open 
sympathy with the more culpable of their kind. A busi- 
ness whose system is lawlessness and whose finished pro- 
duct is a drunkard ought to have no lawful abiding place 
in this republic. It is an outlaw measured by its prac- 
tices, and a criminal tested by its results. A business that 
will not be regulated by law must at last be destroyed 
by law. The traffic in intoxicating liquor has refused 
to be regulated, and therefore earned the penalty of 
legislative extinction. Its promises of reformation are 
tc be weighed in the light of its past performances. ‘he 
breweries’ efforts to reform the saloon keeper are to be 
measured by their creation of his disreputable kind. 


THE SUM POE eae Val Wie ea Na 


I am aware that there is a prejudice against any man 
who manufactures alcohol. I believe that from the time 
it issues from the coiled and poisonous worms in the dis- 
tillery until it empties into the jaws of death, dishonor 
and crime, it demoralizes everybody that touches it, from 
its source to where it ends. I do not believe anybody 
can contemplate the object without being prejudiced 
against the liquor crime. 

All we have to do is to think of the wrecks on either 
bank of the stream of death, of the suicides, of the in- 


1 By Robert G. Ingersoll. Commoner. 13:13. July 11, 1973. 


PROHIBITION 55 


sanity, of the ignorance, of the destitution, of the little 
children tugging at the faded and withered breast of 
weeping and despairing mothers, of wives asking for 
bread, of the men of genius it has wrecked, the men 
struggling with imaginary serpents, produced by this 
devilish thing; and when you think of the jails, of the 
almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, of the scaf- 
folds upon either bank, I do not wonder that every 
thoughtful man is prejudiced against this damned stuff 
called alcohol. Intemperance cuts down youth in its 
vigor, manhood in its strength, old age in its weakness. 
It breaks a father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, 
extinguishes natural affection, erases conjugal love, blots 
out filial attachment, blights parental hopes, brings down 
mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It produces weak- 
ness, not life. It makes wives widows; children orphans; 
fathers fiends, and all of them paupers and beggars. It 
feeds rheumatism, invites cholera, imports pestilence and 
embraces consumption. It covers the land with idleness, 
misery, crime. It fills your jails, supplies your alms- 
houses and demands your asylums. It engenders con- 
troversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes riots. 

It crowds your penitentiaries and furnishes victims 
for your scaffold. It is the life blood of the gambler, the 
element of the burglar, the prop of the highwayman and 
support of the midnight incendiary. It countenances the 
liar, respects the thief, esteems the blasphemer. It vio- 
lates obligation, reverences fraud and honors infamy. It 
defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and slan- 
ders innocence. It incites the father to butcher his help- 
less offspring, helps the husband to massacre his wife 
and the child to grind the patricidal ax. It burns up men, 
consumes women, detests life, curses God, despises 
heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the 
jury box and stains judicial ermine. It degrades the 
citizen, debases the legislator, dishonors the statesman 
and disarms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; 


56 SE CECT HD TARAIGUES 


misery, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happi- 
ness, and with the malevolence of a fiend it calmly sur- 
veys its frightful desolation and unsatiated havoc. It 
poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confi- 
dence, slays reputations, and wipes out national honor, 
then curses the world and laughs at its ruin. It does all 
that and more. It murders the soul. It is the sum of 
all villainies, the father of all crimes, the mother of all 
abominations, the devil’s best friend and God’s worst 
enemy. 


THESGREAWSDES TROY ERs 


ALCOHOL IN HISTORY 


History is a record of a sad procession of world 
tragedies. Nations and empires in turn have risen to 
greatness only to fall. Before the deathblow was struck 
from without the evidence shows in every case the ra- 
vages of a titanic destroyer within, under whose opera- 
tions the vitality and strength of the nation were sub- 
merged in a general degeneracy. 

For centuries the world’s philosophers and historians 
have looked on appalled, overwhelmed. Only in the last 
few years has science taken up the question. Following 
her patient, rigid methods, under which nature and life 
have slowly yielded up their secrets, science has at last 
cleared up the mystery and identified the Great Destroyer 
as alcoholic poisoning. 


THE DISCOVERY 


The discovery, like most great discoveries, came 
about almost by accident. During the Boer War it was 
found that the average Englishman did not measure up 
to the standards of recruiting and the average soldier in 


1 By Captain Richmond P. Hobson. Congressional Record. 46: 1867-73. 
February 2, 1911. 


PROHIBITION 57 


the field manifested a low plane of vitality and endur- 
ance. Parliament, alarmed by the disastrous . conse- 
quences, instituted an investigation. The commission 
appointed brought in a finding that alcoholic poisoning 
was the great cause of the national degeneracy. The in- 
vestigations of the commission have been supplanted by 
investigations of scientific bodies and individual scien- 
tists, all arriving at the same conclusion. As a conse- 
quence, the British government has placarded the streets 
of a hundred cities with billboards setting forth the de- 
structive and degenerating nature of alcohol and appeal- 
ing to the people in the name of the nation to desist from 
drinking alcoholic beverage. Under efforts directed by 
the government the British Army is fast becoming an 
army of total abstainers. 

In the summer of 1909 an international conference on 
alcoholism was held in London, to which most of the 
great nations sent scientific men or delegates. Compar- 
ing the results of investigation made in all parts of the 
world, finding that these results agreed, representive 
medical leaders of the conference drew up a report in the 
form of a statement defining the nature of alcohol as 
follows: 


Tue NATURE oF ALCOHOL 


Exact laboratory, clinical and pathological research has dem- 
onstrated that alcohol is a dehydrating, protoplasmic poison, and 
its use as a beverage is destructive and degenerating to the 
human organism. Its effects upon the cells and tissues of the 
body are depressive, narcotic, and anesthetic. Therefore, 
therapeutically, its use should be limited and restricted in the 
same way as the use of other poisonous drugs. 


It is to be noted that the investigation has been con- 
clusive. The question has passed beyond the experimen- 
tal stage, beyond the stage of theory, and is a demonstra- 
tion that is final, like the demonstration that the world 
is round and not flat. 


58 SEUCEC LED MAR BIGLES 


ALCOHOL A PoISON 


The last word of science, after exact research in all 
the domains, is that alcohol is a poison. It has been 
found to be a hydrocarbon of the formula C,H,O, that | 
is produced by the process of fermentation, and is the 
toxin, or liquid excretion or waste product, of the yeast 
or ferment germ. According to the universal law of 
biology that the toxin of one form of life is a poison to 
all forms of life of a higher order, alcohol, the toxin of 
the low yeast germ, 1s a protoplasmic poison to all life, 
whether plant, animal, or man, and to all the living tissues 
and organs. 

The alcohol toxin not only has a poisoning effect of 
its own in every case, but in addition, through lowered 
vitality, the organs and tissues are opened to attack from 
other sources. 


ALCOHOL THE CAUSE OF DISEASE 


The results can be illustrated by taking the effect of 
alcohol on the white blood corpuscles, the wonderful 
standing army of the system, whose organized hosts, mil- 
lions strong, attack and destroy the hordes of disease 
germs of all kinds that are constantly entering the system 
through the air we breathe, the food and drink, and 
through abrasions of the skin. These disease germs, 
seeking a lodgment, germs of tuberculosis usually in the 
lungs, germs of typhoid in the intestines, each kind in its 
favorite organs or tissues, are constantly under assault 
from the armies of the corpuscles. It the latter win from 
the outset the germs are thrown off. If the germs win 
at first they get a lodgment and multiply, and the person 
contracts the diseases. If by repeated assaults the cor- 
puscles finally win, the patient recovers. If the multi- 
plying hordes of germs win, the patient dies. Nearly all 
the diseases of mankind and nearly all the deaths hang 
upon the vitality and vigor of the white blood corpuscles. 


PROHIBITION 50 


One DrINK MAKES THE WHITE BLoop 
CoRPUSCLES DRUNK 


Under the microscope it was found that even a mo- 
derate drink of alcoholic beverage passing quickly into 
the blood paralyzes the white blood corpuscles. They 
behave like drunken men. In pursuit they cannot catch 
the disease germs. In conflict they cannot hold the dis- 
ease germs for devouring, and they cannot operate in 
great phalanxes, as they do when sober, against such 
powerful germs as those of consumption. 

Every time a man takes a drink of alcoholic beverage 
he lays himself open for a time to contracting diseases. 
Every time a man takes a drink he puts his life in peril. 
No wonder the mortality statistics show, as they do, that 
a total abstainer has nearly twice the security and hold 
on life that the average drinker has and about three times 
the hold of heavy drinkers and those engaged in the 
liquor traffic. 

If the drinks are repeated, the microscope shows that 
the fighting powers of the white blood corpuscles are 
permanently impaired, even when they are not actually 
drunk. This accounts for the lowered vitality of regu- 
jar drinkers, even though temperate. 

After long-continued drinking, even though temper- 
ate, the microscope shows that the white blood cor- 
puscles, with the serum which contains their vegetable 
food continually sucked up by the dehydrating toxin, 
become carniverous, and begin to feed upon the tissues 
and organs like disease germs. The favorite tissue food 
of the degenerate corpuscles are the tender cells of latest 
development. In the human being the latest development 
is the brain. The microscope shows the degenerate cor- 
puscles, with the goods upon them, down in their bodies 
the gray matter of the brain. This accounts for the tre- 
mendous mortality among heavy drinkers and for the 
degeneracy that will be referred to later. 


60 SELEGPEDY AKDIGLES 


THE GREAT DESTROYER 


It is difficult to say in any particular case whether 
having alcohol in the system caused a patient to take a 
disease or caused a patient to die, and “alcoholism” at- 
tributed to men who die in delirium tremens is the only 
record of death ordinarily kept against alcohol. But the 
British government, in conjunction with English life in- 
surance companies, from the records of millions of cases, 
has been able to determine the death rate of total ab- 
stainers and of those who drink. 

Statistics compiled by insurance companies show that 
the death rate for the population at large is one thousand 
deaths per year out of every 61,215 of the population, 
and that the death rate of total abstainers is five hundred 
sixty per year out of the same number, and for liquor 
dealers sixteen hundred forty-two deaths per year out 
of the same number. These figures, resulting from many 
millions of cases, can be taken as accurate. They show 
that four hundred forty deaths out of every one thousand 
deaths, nearly one-half of the deaths that occur, are due 
to alcohol. Applied to this country, over six hundred 
eighty thousand deaths per year in continental United 
States, or over seven hundred twenty-five thousand per 
year in the United States and its possessions. In other 
words, alcohol is killing our people at the rate of nearly 
two thousand men a day every day in the year. 


ALCOHOL TEN THOUSAND TIMES More DESTRUCTIVE 
THAN WAR 


The Army War College at Washington made an in- 
vestigation of the destructiveness of war. Taking all the 
wars of the world, from the Russo-Japanese War back 
to 500 B.C., the War College found that the total num- 
ber of killed and wounded in battle amounts to about 
two million, eight hundred thousand of which it is esti- 


PROHIBITION 61 


mated that about seven hundred thousand were killed 
and something over two million wounded. 

The comparative figures show the appalling fact that 
alcohol is killing off as many Americans every year as all 
the wars of the world have killed in battle in twenty-three 
hundred years. 

Applied to the whole white race, we find that alcohol 
is killing three million, five hundred thousand white men 
every year, five times as many as have been killed in war 
in twenty-three hundred years; so that, stated mathe- 
matically, alcohol is ten thousand times more destructive 
than all wars combined. No wonder the governments 
investigating the subject have found that war has been 
only a secondary cause of national decline, and that al- 
cohol has been the real destroyer that has overthrown all 
the great nations of the past and is now undermining the 
great nations of today. 

ALcoHoL’s WouNDED Topay ARE More THAN 
ONE Hunprep MILLION WHITE MEN 


The figures of the British government and English 
life insurance companies as to the effect of drinking on 
longevity are stated as follows: 

If a young man at the age of twenty is a total ab- 
stainer and remains a total abstainer, his prospect of 
life is forty-four years and he will live to the average 
age of sixty-four, but if he is a temperate regular drinker 
his prospect of life will be thirty-one years and he will 
live to the average age of fifty-one, after losing thirteen 
years out of his life. If he is a heavy drinker, his pros- 
pect of life is fifteen years and he will die at the average 
age of thirty-five, after losing twenty-nine years out of 
his life. Conservative estimates place the number of 
confirmed drunkards in the United States at something 
over one million, of whom three hundred thousand die 
every year; the heavy drinker at over four million; and 
temperate regular drinkers at over twenty million. A 


62 SELEGREDTARTIGLES 


soldier wounded in battle and losing ten years of his life 
as a consequence would be classed as seriously wounded. 
The confirmed drunkards and heavy drinkers together, 
five million in number, must be looked upon as mortally 
wounded and the temperate regular drinkers as seriously 
wounded, making “a total of over twenty-five million 
Americans wounded by alcohol today, more than ten times 
as many as were wounded in all the battles of the world 
since the dawn of history. The estimates for the white 
race make over one hundred and twenty-five million 
white men today wounded by alcohol. 

If a great military power were to declare war on un- 
prepared America today every patriotic heart would be 
filled with anxiety. I know the full significance of war, 
especially when a nation is unprepared. But if I had the 
choice of having alcohol continue its deadly ravages with 
the nation at peace or of having it wiped off the face of 
the land with a declaration of war by all the nations of 
the earth, | would not hesitate for a moment; I would 
take sober, undegenerate America and face the combined 
world in arms. 


ALCOHOL DEGENERATES 


The full ravages of alcohol are not measured even by 
the appalling list of killed and wounded. War kills and 
wounds; alcohol kills and wounds ten thousand times 
more than all war combined, and in addition it degener- 
ates. Its toxin attacks with special virility the young, 
tender cells associated with evolution. A plant or vege- 
table or fruit steadily evolving some color or form under 
the process of cultivation when watered with water to 
which a small quantity of alcohol is added will quickly 
cease to evolve and will lose the color and form and re- 
vert backward toward the condition when it grew wild. 
If a young domestic animal is brought up on a fare to 
which a small ration of alcohol is added by the time it 


PROHIBITION 63 


is grown it will lose those qualities acquired in domes- 
ticity. 


THE CuRSE OF THE RED MAN AND BLAcK MAN 


If a peaceable red man is subjected to the regular use 
of alcoholic beverage, he will speedily be put back on the 
plane of the savage. The government long since recog- 
nized this and absolutely prohibits the introduction of al- 
coholic beverage into an Indian reservation. If a negro 
takes up a regular use of alcoholic beverage, in a short 
time he will degenerate to the level of a cannibal. 


CONQUERS THE NosBLest WHITE MEN 


No matter how high the stage of evolution, the result 
is the same. A white man with great self-control, con- 
siderate, tender-hearted, who would not willingly harm 
an insect, will be degenerated by regular use of alcoholic 
beverage to the point where he will strike with a dagger 
or fire a shot to kill with little or no provocation. 


THE OVERSHADOWING CAUSE OF CRIME, PAUPERISM, 
AND INSANITY 


Though at first a tender, loving husband and parent, 
he will degenerate to the point where he will be cruel 
to his own flesh and blood. It 1s conservatively estimated 
that 95 per cent of all the acts and crimes of violence 
committed in civilized communities are the direct result 
of men being put down by alcohol toward a plane of 
savagery. The degenerating process strikes at the integ- 
rity of the reason and is the chief cause of idiocy and in- 
sanity. It wipes out self-control, self-respect, the sense 
of honor, the moral sense, and produces the bulk of 
tramps, paupers, vagabonds. 


64 SELECTED VARTICLES 


DeEeFIES NATURE AND NATURE'S GOD 


In every living thing there is the evolutionary im- 
pulse to rise and progress. In the human family man is 
not changing much in his physical nature, but is evolv- 
ing chiefly in his nervous system, building up those dell- 
cate centers of the brain upon whose activities rests the 
moral sense. Nature is trying to produce men of high 
character, a race of true, noble men. Alcoholic bever- 
ages even in moderation reverse the processes of nature 
and set back the purposes of creation. 


Brincs NATURE'S CurSsE—BLIGHTS PROGENY 


Nature is pitiless when her processes are reversed. 
She abhors degeneracy and will not tolerate its perpetu- 
ation. With parents properly mated and undegenerated 
the offspring will multiply and be higher and nobler in 
each succeeding generation. But woe to the offspring if 
the parents degenerate themselves. Nature will blast the 
progeny and everything associated with its production. 


BLIGHTS THE FRUITING OF PLANTS AND THE 
OFFSPRING OF ANIMALS 


Upon a fruit tree watered with alcohol mixed with 
the water the fruit will fall untimely. With animals the 
law is the same. Scientists selected from a litter of 
spaniels two little brothers exactly alike in infancy and 
brought them up, one as an alcoholic and the other as a 
total abstainer, giving the former only a small quantity 
of alcohol with his food, about equivalent in proportion 
to what benighted parents often give their children in 
beer or light wine mixed with water. From another litter 
of spaniels they selected two little sisters exactly alike in 
infancy, and brought them up in the same way, one as an 
alcoholic, the other as a total abstainer. When the four 
dogs were grown they were mated, the two alcoholics 


PROHIBITION 65 


together, and the two total abstainers together, and the 
process was repeated. The two mothers and the off- 
spring were placed under close scientific observation 
Extraordinary phenomena set in with the alcoholic 
mother. She experienced difficulties and accidents, suf- 
fered great travail in birth and finally died in pupbirth 
with the fifth litter, a phenomena unknown before. Many 
of her offspring were born dead. Many of them died in 
infancy, and of those that survived only 17.3 per cent 
were normal. 

The little abstaining mother had no such experience, 
she bore large litters of healthy, strong pups, of which 
90.5 were absolutely normal. 


BLIGHTS THE PROGENY OF MAN 


The same inexorable law holds for man as for ani- 
mals and plants. A scientist having investigated more 
than eight hundred cases, announces that of children 
born to alcoholic parents, one of every five will be hope- 
lessly insane, one out of three will be hysterical or epilep- 
tic. More than two-thirds will be degenerate. Another 
scientist located ten large families in which both parents 
were alcoholic, and in the same localities, with other con- 
ditions practically the same, ten large families in which 
both parents were total abstainers. Of the fifty-seven 
children of the alcoholic parents, ten were deformed, six 
were epileptic, six were idiotic, twenty-five were non- 
viable, only 17 per cent were normal, 83 per cent being 
abnormal. Of the sixty-one children of the total abstain- 
ing parents, 10.5 per cent only were abnormal, and these 
chiefly backward, while 89.5 per cent were absolutely 
normal. Seventeen per cent were normal in the one case. 
and 89.5 per cent in the other case, a difference of 72.5 
Detecciit. 

Parents by becoming alcoholic will sacrifice three- 
fourths of their children on the altar of drink. 


66 SHIVER GAD MAN TU Bs 


ALCOHOL THE CURSE OF THE PERILS OF CHILDBIRTH 
AND THE DANGER OF RACE SUICIDE 


Another scientist after wide investigation has found 
that in only 1 per cent of cases do accidents occur in ma- 
ternity to mothers where the parents are total abstainers, 
while 5.25 per cent occur where the parents are regular 
temperate drinkers, and 7.32 per cent where the parents 
are heavy drinkers. In the case of total abstaining 
parents the deaths in infancy among their children will 
be 13 per cent; in the case of temperate regular drinkers 
23 per cent, and heavy drinkers 32 per cent. Of the 
children of drinkers 10 per cent will have consumption, 
of the children of total abstainers, only 1.8. Those who 
drink alcoholic beverage should realize the terrible price 
they pay. For even temperate regular drinking, they in- 
crease over 400 per cent the chances of accidents in 
maternity. They nearly double the chances of their chil- 
dren dying in infancy, and they undermine the health and 
normality of those that survive. A man may take chances 
with himself, but if he has a spark of nobility in his soul, 
he will take care how he tampers with a deadly poison 
that will cause the helpless little children that he brings 
into the world to be deformed, idiotic, epileptic, insane. 


THE ONty RATIONAL LIFE 


In the light of the truth that every drink endangers 
health, the terrible truth that alcohol destroys and de- 
generates, and that it blights progeny, there can be from 
the standpoint of the individual but one rational course 
of life with regard to this deadly poison, and that is a 
life of absolute, total abstinence. 

The standpoint of the individual is not the only stand- 
point from which this great destroyer must be examined. 
His blight is as deadly for society as it is for the individ- 
ual. We must examine him from the standpoint of the 
state. 


PROHIBITION 67 


Destroys Over HALF THE NATION'S WEALTH 


From conclusions drawn from scientific tests re- 
ferred to above, it is conservative to estimate that the 
heavy drinkers and confirmed drunkards in the United 
States have their productive efficiency lowered at least 
75 per cent; that the temperate, regular drinkers, who 
drink alcoholic beverages every day of their lives, suffer 
a loss of productive efficiency of fully 50 per cent; that 
the occasional drinkers suffer a loss of fully 10 per cent. 
This is what Dr. Aschaffenberg proved by his famous 
test of four German typesetters—drinking men—who 
averaged a tenth more work when they drank nothing 
for a day than when they drank even one ounce of al- 
cohol at home in pure wine or beer (the equivalent of 
over 5 per cent loss to the nation). The wide use of al- 
coholic beverage I estimate as causing a loss of fully 21 
per cent in the efficiency of the nation’s producers. The 
production of wealth is at a rate of about $32,000,000,000 
yearly ; the loss due to lowered efficiency, conservatively 
estimated in round figures, is therefore fully $8,500,000,- 


QOO. 
Economic Loss or THoseE WHo Arr KILLED 


It is estimated that each one of the 700,000 men cut 
off untimely every year by alcohol would have, sober, an 
economic value of $8,000, making a loss of $5,600,000,- 
000. The nation last year on account of the lowered effi- 
ciency of its producers and the death list was over $14,- 
000,000,000 short in its productiveness. Instead of pro- 
ducing only $32,000,000,000 of wealth, we would have 
produced without alcohol over $46,000,000,000. 


THE BuRDEN OF CRIME, PAUPERISM, AND INSANITY 


It is estimated that the cost of providing for the 
added crime, pauperism, idiocy, and insanity produced by 
alcohol in the United States paid for by direct taxation 
exceeds $2,000,000,000 per annum: 


68 SELECTED BAR EICUES 


THE TotTaL Liquor BILL 


The people of the United States last year consumed 
more than two and one-half billion gallons of alcoholic 
beverage, paying for same nearly $2,000,000,000, making 
a total loss of above $16,000,000,000. 


ALCOHOL DISINHERITS THE NATION 


Summing up the economic losses from the lowered 
efficiency of our producers, from the death list, from the 
costs of crime, pauperism, and insanity, and from the 
liquor bill, the total economic burden laid upon the na- 
tion by King Alcohol is between sixteen and seventeen 
billions of dollars, more than half of all the wealth pro- 
duced by the nation. If our national government in a 
year appropriates $1,000,000,000, though for purposes 
of uplift, it is criticized for the burdens laid upon the 
people. Here in alcohol we have a ruler that puts upon 
us a burden of $16,500,000,000 for purposes of destruc- 
tion and degeneracy. 

It is not difficult to see the duty of the state. Ifa 
foreign invader landed on our shores and disinherited the 
people of a single country, the nation would be up in arms. 
Here is a foe that has come upon us and is taxing us 
for more than the values of all the products of all our 
farms, all our forests, all our mines, all our fisheries; 
equivalent to taking from our people all that mother 
earth produces on land and water combined. What shall 
be the attitude of the state in face of a foe that has dis- 
inherited the whole nation? Clearly the state has not 
only the clear right but the bounden duty to take up arms 
and expel the foe. 


ALCOHOL 1S DESTROYING THE CHARACTER 
OF THE NATION 


But even this terrific economic loss is but a small 
part of the ravages of this destroyer. As seen above, 


PROHIBITION 69 


alcohol attacks the line of evolution more than any other 
line. In the case of man the line of evolution is in mor- 
al advancement—what in any individual may be termed 
character. Therefore the loss of character must be far 
greater than the economic loss. We found the economic 
loss to be fully 21 per cent. If character could be mea- 
sured by percentage, we would have to estimate the loss 
in average character of the nation as fully 50 per cent. 

Looking upon a nation as climbing a ladder of evo- 
lution, alcohol, like a millstone, drags it halfway to the 
bottom. The full significance of this drag appears when 
we realize that upon the average standard of character 
of its citizens must rest the institutions of a nation. It 
has become an axiom of history that if the average stan- 
dard of character is below a certain minimum level, a 
nation cannot enjoy self-government. 


LIBERTY IS AT STAKE 


In our great cities like New York, Chicago, Philadel- 
phia, the ravages upon the average character have been 
so great, so many degenerates have already been pro- 
duced, that the degenerate and corruptible vote not only 
holds the balance of power between the two great politi- 
cal parties and can dictate to both, but actually holds a 
majority of the votes, so that honest and efficient self- 
government as a permanent condition is now impossible. 
As young as our nation is, the deadly work of alcohol has 
already blighted liberty in our greatest cities. 

At the present rate of the growth of cities over coun- 
try life, if no check is put upon the spread of alcoholic 
degeneracy, the day cannot be far distant when liberty 
in great states must go under. It will then be but a ques- 
tion of time when the average standard of character of 
the nation’s electorate will fall below that inexorable 
minimum and liberty will take her flight from America, 
as she did from Greece and Rome. 


70 ,oLLECTED | ARTICLES 


The overthrow of liberty in America would be a sad 
event for the world. If free institutions cannot stem the 
flood of alcoholic degeneracy in this land, there is little 
hope for other lands; if the average standard of charac- 
ter sinks too low for liberty here, if in the face of alco- 
hol liberty cannot be preserved in America, it cannot 
anywhere else. If King Alcohol continues his trium- 
phant march, crushing the character of our citizens, he 
will make a short cut to blighting the liberties of man- 
kind. 

The state has a right and a duty to protect its free 
institutions. One of the main objects for which a state 
exists is to promote the development of character of its 
people. In the premises, therefore, it has not only the 
right but the bounden duty to put an end to the ravages 
of this destroyer. 


THE SALOON IS AN ASSASSIN 


Last year, on an average, each saloon in the United 
States was the cause of the death of three men. This 
year each saloon, on the average, will kill three men. 
Each saloon in the United States, on an average, now has 
twenty men made heavy drinkers or drunkards, who are 
mortally wounded. Each saloon, on an average, has one 
hundred men made regular drinkers, who are seriously 
wounded. 

Speaking for myself, I feel no bitterness against 
those engaged in the liquor traffic. They are in business 
by the consent of the government, which shares the 
spoils. The government belongs to all the people. The 
blame for the business is to be laid at the doors of all 
the people who have not done their utmost to destroy it. 

In the full light of the facts, I cannot look upon any 
saloon otherwise than as an assassin, the most barbarous, 
atrocious of assassins. It is vain to plead that the men 
who drink are responsible for the slaughter. They drink 
because the drug is kept in their presence. No amount 
of suffering will cause them to stop, or will warn others 


PROHIBITION 71 


away. Meat with strychnine placed along the street will 
kill the dogs. No terrible examples will have any effect. 
The fact of the poisoned meat being placed on the street 
is the cause of the destruction. hen this remarkable, 
seductive poison of alcohol is placed along the streets 
in saloons, men will take it. The fact of its being on 
the street is the real cause of its being taken. Irrespec- 
tive of the question of the responsibility for its existence, 
the saloon is fundamentally an assassin. 

The first duty assumed by any government is the pro- 
tection of the lives of its citizens. To any civilized gov- 
ernment the life of its citizens is sacred. It is incredible 
that the governments of the world should continue in 
league with assassins. When the true nature of alco- 
hol becomes better understood, no community will longer 
tolerate these assassins, who take their stand on the cor- 
ners and up and down the squares of our cities. In the 
premises the state has not only the right but the bounden 
duty to put an end to this wholesale assassination. 


THE NATIONS Lire ITSELF AT STAKE 


The menace of this destroyer extends yet further, to 
the very life of the nation itself. In the rural life of the 
country, the people do not have the poison continually in 
their path, so in spite of unusual hardship the great law 
of evolution and progress causes numbers to increase and 
each generation to be higher than the previous. Thus 
it is that the great empires and enduring civilizations of 
history were all built upon rural life. A time comes, 
however, in the life of each nation when its citizens, hav- 
ing accumulated wealth, gather into cities to enjoy it. 
There the great destroyer does his deadly work. 


PREVENTS DEVELOPING A THOROUGHBRED RACE OF MEN 


With seductive mockery, the poison stands on the 
tables of the rich, of the families of high degree. De- 
generacy sets in forthwith. In all lands the great families 


72 SHER CLEDPARGLELES 


rise only to sink back again. The royal and noble fami- 
lies of the Old World, the great families of America, 
might have gone on and produced a race of thorough- 
breds. But, alas! they count among them the most de- 
generate of all. It is not difficult to produce a thorough- 
bred race of corn. We can develop a thoroughbred race 
of horses or of dogs, but we cannot produce a thorough- 
bred race of men. The great destroyer strikes the fam- 
ilies down as fast as they rise. 


THE RISE AND FALL oF NATIONS AND EMPIRES 


The ravages, however, are not confined to families of 
high degree.- The bars of the saloons keep the poison in 
the presence of families of middle and lower degree. The 
whole population of the cities is stricken. Those who 
have moved from the country to the city begin to de- 
generate themselves, and their degeneracy is visited upon 
the offspring. In a few generations the community is 
flooded with degenerates and abnormals. Thus far, 
whenever city life has come to predominate, the nation 
has been doomed. Resting upon degenerates, its institu- 
tions have been blighted and sooner or later in the 
struggle for survival, when struck by a foreign foe, it 
has fallen never to rise again. ‘This is the sad history of 
Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, Greece, Rome, Gaul. Rome 
made the deepest imprint on history because it was 
longest rural and frugal, and while undegenerate it con- 
quered the world, and upon the true principles of juris- 
prudence and justice reared a wonderful system of free 
institutions. But the Romans in turn gathered into their 
great city to be blighted, put up its crown at auction, and 
at last the empire was overthrown by the despised bar- 
barians. 

Any form of plant life can be made to rise and de- 
velop indefinitely; likewise, any type of animal life; but 
history records the sad fact that a nation, made up of the 


PROHIBITION 43 


noblest type of all, the creature in the image of his 
Maker, only rises to fall. 


Pr Mb Ea Eee OUORTURAT PE IG2 


Personally I have seen so much of the evils of the 
traffic in the last four years, so much of its economic 
waste, so much of its physical ruin, so much of its 
mental blight, so much of its tears and heartache, that 
I have come to regard the business as one that must 
be held and controlled by strong and effective laws. I 
bear no malice toward those engaged in the business, 
but I hate the traffic. I hate its every phase. I hate 
it for its intolerance. I hate it for its arrogance. I hate 
it for its hypocrisy. I hate it for its cant and craft and 
false pretenses. I hate it for its commercialism. I hate 
it for its greed and avarice. I hate it for its sordid love 
of gain at any price. I hate it for its domination in 
politics. I hate it for its corrupting influence in civic 
affairs. I hate it for its incessant effort to debauch the 
suffrage of the country; for the cowards it makes of 
public men. I hate it for its utter disregard of law. I 
hate it for its ruthless trampling of the solemn com- 
pacts of state constitutions. I hate it for the load it 
straps to labor’s back; for the palsied hands it gives to 
toil; for its wounds to genius; for the tragedies of its 
might-have-beens. I hate it for the human wrecks it 
has caused. I hate it for the almshouses it peoples; for 
the prisons it fills; for the insanity it begets; for its 
countless graves in potters’ fields. I hate it for the 
mental ruin it imposes upon its victims; for its spiritual 
blight; for its moral degradation. I hate it for the 
crimes it has committed. I hate it for the homes it has 
destroyed. I hate it for the hearts it has broken. I hate 
it for the malice it has planted in the hearts of men— 


1 By Governor J. Frank Hanly. Speech to an Indiana Republican 
State Convention. 


74 SELECTED) ARTICLES 


for its poison, for its bitterness—for the dead sea fruit 
with which it starves their souls. I hate it for the grief 
it causes womanhood—the scalding tears, the hopes de- 
ferred, the strangled aspirations, its burden of want’and 
care. I hate it for its heartless cruelty to the aged, the 
infirm and the helpless, for the shadow it throws upon 
the lives of children, for its monstrous injustice to blame- 
less little ones. I hate it as virtue hates vice, as truth 
hates error, as righteousness hates sin, as justice hates 
wrong, as liberty hates tyranny, as freedom hates op- 
pression. 


BRIEF EXCERPTS 


Alcoholism in either of the parents is one of the 
most fruitful causes of crime in the child.—Havelock 
Ellis. The Criminal. p. 97. 


The baleful influence of alcohol is one of the best 
known and most transparent causes of crime.—Professor 
Gustav Aschaffenburg. Crime and Its Repression. p. 60. 


Excessive drinking lies at the root of a very large 
proportion of moral and physical misery.—Lady Astor. 
Journal of State Medicme. 30:118. March, 1922. 


Alcohol plays a relatively unimportant part in the 
production of certified insanity—Dr. Frederick W. 
Mott in Starling, Ernest H. The Action of Alcohol on 
Man. p. 212. 


Alcoholism and tuberculosis stand foremost amongst 
the conditions hampering human progress and limiting 
man’s happiness.—Dr. T. N. Kelynack. British Journal 
of Inebriety. 18:85. January, 1921. 


Massachusetts prison statistics show that 96 per cent 
of all criminals in our prisons in 1912 were intemperate 


PROHIBITION 75 


by habit—From the Report of the Commission to In- 
vestigate Drunkenness in Massachusetts. January, 1914. 
PORTO: 


Nothing could show more clearly what gives the im- 
mediate impulse to assault and battery than the fact 
that two-thirds of all fights take place in, or in front 
of, a public house——Professor Gustav Aschaffenburg. 
Crime and Its Repression. p. 79. 


It is unquestioned that, in most countries, the worst 
sufferings inflicted upon women, children, and dumb 
animals are perpetrated under the influence of strong 
drink, for this is provocative of both cruelty and lust. 
—William Tallack. Penological Principles. p. 296. 


Intoxicating drink has been associated with prosti- 
tution from the earliest times. Through the pages of 
social history, alcohol figures as the evil genius of sex 
life almost from the beginnings of civilization.—W alter 
Clarke. Social Hygiene. 3:75. January, 1917. 


A careful scientist has called alcohol the indispens- 
able vehicle of the business transacted by the white slave 
traders, and has asserted that without its use this trade 
could not long endure—Jane Addams. A New Con- 
science and an Ancient Evil. p. 188. 


It was a distinguished French physician who said 
that alcohol prepares the bed for tuberculosis. To this 
statement British medical experience lends the entirety 
of its support.—Sir Thomas Oliver, M.D. British Jour- 
nal of Inebriety. 18:91. January, 1921. 


Intemperance is a proximate cause of a very large 
proportion of the crime committed in America. Fully 
three-fourths of all the prisoners with whom I have 
personally conversed in different parts of the country 


76 SELECTED ARTICLES 


admitted that they were addicted to an excessive use of 
alcoholic liquors.—E. C. Wines. State of Prisons. p. 113. 


There are in Chicago a large number of “hang-outs”’ 
which are the meeting places of well-known professional 
criminals. The Committee has found one hundred of 
these, most of which were saloons and pool rooms.— 
Report of the City Council Committee on Crime of the 
City of Chicago. 1915. p. I0. 


All thinking people are agreed that the abuse of 
alcohol among civilized nations is directly or indirectly 
responsible for a large proportion of the crimes of vio- 
lence, of industrial inefficiency, of poverty and misery. 
—Dr. Frederick W. Mott in Starling, Ernest H. The 
Action of Alcohol on Man. p. ait. 


If I could have my way, I would wipe out every 
saloon. The saloon is the prolific source of nine-tenths 
of the misery, wretchedness, and crime, and is, more 
than we know, responsible for the social evil—Rev. 
Charles H. Parkhurst. New York Voice. January 16, 
1896. 


Abundant evidence was given as to the intimate re- 
lation between alcohol and venereal diseases. Alcohol 
renders a man liable to yield to temptations which he 
might otherwise resist, and aggravates the disease by 
diminishing the resistance of the individual—Final Re- 
port of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases. 


One of the statements most frequently made is that 
the great majority of crimes are due to drink. It would 
be more accurate to say that most prisoners were under 
the influence of drink at the time they committed the 
breach of the law for which they have been convicted. 
The great majority are petty offenders——James Devon. 
The Criminal and the Community. p. 52. 


PROHIBITION vy; 


Alcoholized individuals procreate defective children. 
These in their turn, if permitted, continue the chain of 
the pathological condition. One such family is capable 
of throwing into the community dozens of useless or dan- 
gerous individuals, who, if capable of multiplying, will 
produce their like—Dr. Alfred Gordon. Interstate Med1- 
cal Journal. 23:430. June, 1910. 


We have attributed the abnormal increase of crim- 
inality and pauperism in the United States largely to 
an increase of intemperance. Alcoholic drink is esti- 
mated to be the direct or indirect cause of 75 per cent 
of all the crimes committed, and of at least 50 per cent 
of all the sufferings endured on account of poverty, in 
this country and among civilized nations.—H. M. Boise. 
Prisoners and Paupers. p. 137. 


It is claimed that in the United States the traffic of 
intoxicating liquors is, directly or indirectly, responsible 
[Ome MDCT mCCIIUnOMLNes DOVCLLY AMO /mpeLmcentuorwtne 
pauperism, 45.8 per cent of child misery, 25 per cent 
of insanity, 19.5 per cent of divorces, and 50 per cent 
of the crime. These are grave charges, and their truth 
has not been denied.—Philip P. Campbell. Congressional 
Record. 52:490-7. December 22, 1914. 


Many crimes are known to be committed by per- 
sons while intoxicated or because they are intoxicated, 
especially those against the person. But the majority of 
crimes are offenses against property, which for their 
success require other habits than those of the confirmed 
drunkard. Those who prey upon society as gangsters, 
burglars, pickpockets, and gunmen are far more likely 
to be drug fiends than alcoholics—John Koren. Alcohol 
and Soctety. p. 52. 


By the general concurrence of opinion of every civ- 
ilized and Christian community, there are few sources 


78 SELECTED ARTICLES 


of crime and misery to society equal to the dramshop, 
where intoxicating liquors, in small quantities, to be 
drunk at the time, are sold indiscriminately to all parties 
applying. The statistics of every state show a greater 
amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of 
ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than 
to any other source.—United States Supreme Court. 137. 


U.S. 56. 1890. 


The committee finds that the chief direct cause of 
the downfall of women and girls is the close connec- 
tion between alcoholic drink and commercialized vice. 
Women obtain liquor in palm gardens, wine rooms, 
saloons, and dance halls. To these places they are fre- 
quently taken by their companions and given liquor 
until their senses are deadened, after which the evil 
design sought is accomplished. After the first offense 
the career of a woman is apt to be downward at a 
rapid rate—Report of the Wisconsin Vice Committee 


(1914). p. 98. 


In the Commissioner’s consideration and investigation 
of the social evil, it found as the most conspicuous and 
important element in connection with the same, next 
to the house of prostitution itself, was the saloon, and 
the most important financial interest, next to the busi- 
ness of prostitution was the liquor interest. As a con- 
tributory influence to immorality and the business of 
prostitution there is no interest so dangerous and so 
powerful in the city of Chicago.—The Social Evil in 
Chicago [Report of the Vice Commission of Chicago, 


TODD app abLo. 


Twenty per cent of all cases of insanity, and more 
than half of the cases of suicide, owe their origin to 
alcohol. Where the use of alcohol is prohibited the num- 
ber of arrests for crime at once falls. During the recent 
terrible earthquake at San Francisco all places for the 


PROHIBITION 79 


sale of alcohol were closed, and, despite the prevailing 
conditions of social anarchy, the average daily number 
of arrests for crime was only three. The very day the 
saloons were opened no less than seventy people were 
arrested, and this number was much increased on sub- 
sequent days.—Dr. Alexander Bryce. The Laws of 
Life and Health. p. 105. 


The following extract from the decrees of the Third 
Plenary Council of Baltimore [1884. Composed of arch- 
bishops and bishops of the Catholic Church in the United 
States.] is pertinent: “There can be no manner of doubt 
that the abuse of intoxicating drinks is to be reckoned 
among the most deplorable evils of this country. This 
excess 1S an unceasing stimulant to vice and a fruitful 
source of misery; vast numbers of men and entire fam- 
ilies are plunged into hopeless ruin and multitudes of 
souls are by it dragged headlong into eternal perdition.” 
—Senator Joseph E. Ransdell. Catholics and Prohibi- 


tion. p. 5. 


The American saloon has no conscience. It never 
did a good act or failed to do a bad one. It is a trap 
for the youth; a destroyer for the old; a foul spawning 
place for crime; a corrupter of politics; knows no party; 
supports those men for office whom it thinks can be 
easiest influenced; has no respect for law or the courts; 
debauches city councils, juries, and everyone it can 
reach; is powerful in the unity of its vote, and creates 
cowards in office. It flatters, tricks, cajoles, and deceives 
in order to accomplish its purpose; is responsible for 
more ruin and death than all the wars the nation has 
ever engaged in; has corrupted more politics, ruined 
more lives, widowed more women, orphaned more chil- 
dren, destroyed more homes, caused more tears to flow, 
broken more hearts, undermined more manhood, and sent 
more people to an early grave than any other influence 
in our land—William S. Kenyon. Congressional Rec- 
ord. 55:5039. August I, 1917. 


80 SELECTED ARTICLES 


There is no doubt that alcoholism, though sometimes 
a mere symptom of some underlying mental disorder, 
is in a great number of cases the actual cause of insanity. 
Statistics in this connection are incomplete and often 
misleading, but here we are less concerned with the 
extent of the evil than with it characteristics. We find 
that the forms of mental disease which may be ascribed 
to alcohol show an extraordinary variety. As Sir George 
Savage said, when discussing the chances of recovery, 
“All things are possible to the alcoholic!” This state- 
ment holds good as regards the protean nature of the 
symptoms exhibited. But another point should be noted. 
Rarely does the clinical examination of a patient whose 
insanity is due to alcohol disclose symptoms which, in 
themselves, point clearly to alcoholic indulgence. Al- 
coholic insanity, with certain exceptions, is practically 
indistinguishable from insanity arising from other 
causes.—Dr, Bedford Pierce. British Journal of Ine- 
briety. 22:1-2. July, 1924. | 


V. THE PROHIBITION MOVEMENT 


HISTORICAI STATEMENT; 


Alcoholic liquors were in common use for beverage 
purposes at the beginning of recorded history. We do 
not know even approximately when the practice began, 
although some able writers, like Dr. Edwin F. Bowers 
in his book, “Alcohol, Its Influence on Mind and Body,” 
say it has been the custom for about thirty thousand 
years, or since the beginning of the agricultural period. 
This is probably as good a guess as can be made. The 
earlier beverages were the fermented liquors, for the 
process of distillation was first used in the eleventh 
century and it was not until the middle of the seven- 
teenth century that ardent spirits became at all common 
in Great Britain. Almost all the nations and peoples 
of the earth are familiar with alcoholic liquors and use 
them for beverage purposes. 

Almost as old as the use of alcoholic liquors have 
been the opposition to them and the efforts to prohibit 
or restrict their use. Senator Henry W. Blair in his 
book, “The Temperance Movement,” published in 1888 
says that the manufacture and drinking of alcoholic 
liquors were prohibited by an edict of the emperor of 
China four thousand years ago. The struggle to keep 
Bacchus out expresses in the figurative way of the an- 
cient Greek language the struggle for prohibition that 
went on among the Hellenes of the classical times. To 
Mohammedan people the Koran speaks a commandment 
of absolute prohibition. 

To this country alcoholic liquors came with the first 
explorers and settlers. In 1535 Cartier feasted the 


1 By Lamar T. Beman. 


82 SELECTED “ARTICLES 


Indians with bread and wine on an island in the St. 
Lawrence river. Henry Hudson landed on Manhattan 
island with many of his men in 1609, met a group of 
Indians, and the whole party had a drunken carousal. 
The Mayflower brought liquor on its first trip to New 
England. In all of the settlements made in America 
liquors were in common use from the very beginning. 
In the early colonial days there were laws in almost 
every colony to restrict the use of liquors, to prohibit 
drunkenness and punish offenders, to license saloon 
keepers, to prevent adulteration, to fix the price so as 
to prevent over-charging, or to prohibit the sale to the 
Indians, to slaves, and in some cases to servants. So 
began the opposition to alcoholic beverages in America. 
It continued for three hundred years, gathering strength 
and momentum, until it culminated in national prohibi- 
tion by an amendment to the Federal Constitution. For 
two centuries this opposition was a matter of moral 
suasion with local restrictive measures far short of pro- 
hibition. Finally in 1808 the first temperance society was 
organized at Moreau, in Saratoga county, New York. For 
the next generation, as these temperance societies were 
being organized throughout the country, lectures, ser- 
mons, temperance songs, and the signing of pledges were 
used to teach people the harmful effects of alcoholic 
liquors and thus reform drunkards, warn the younger 
people of the dangers of the drink habit and keep them 
temperate. At first these societies advocated temper- 
ance, condemning all use of the stronger liquors and 
intemperate use of the milder liquors, but in the early 
thirties many of these societies were advocating total 
abstinence from all alcoholic liquors. 

State-wide prohibition has swept across this country 
in two great waves, the first of which began with its 
adoption in Maine in 1846. In the next decade a dozen 
other states followed Maine in enacting state-wide pro- 
hibition. All of these thirteen states were in the northern 
and eastern part of the country, Illinois and Delaware 


PROHIBITION 83 


being the ones most remote from Maine. In most of 
these states the law was soon repealed and attention was 
diverted from the liquor question by the Civil War. 

Shortly after the beginning of the first wave of state- 
wide prohibition there was a constitutional convention 
in Ohio which drew up a new constitution and sub- 
mitted it to the voters for their ratification or rejection 
at a special election in June of 1851. As one section of 
this constitution, to be voted on separately, this conven- 
tion submitted the following, ‘““No license to traffic in 
intoxicating liquors shall hereafter be granted in this 
state; but the General Assembly may, by law, provide 
against the evils resulting therefrom.” These meaning- 
less words were approved by the voters and became sec- 
tion 9 of article 15 of the constitution of 1851, and re- 
mained a part of the constitution of Ohio until 1912. Ap- 
parently the voters thought the approval of this section 
would mean prohibition for the whole state, but such 
was not the case. While it is difficult properly to esti- 
mate the motives of the members of a convention that 
completed its labors more than three score and ten years 
ago, still it may be said that this seems to be a 
case of a temperance movement betrayed by its own 
leaders. Certainly it was said in the convention before 
final action was taken on this section, and said in lan- 
guage clear and unmistakable, that (1) the meaning of 
this section was not clear, and would have to be in- 
terpreted by the courts, (2) no ambiguous or indefinite 
language should be used in a constitution, (3) this sec- 
tion did not give the General Assembly any greater 
power than it would have if the section were omitted, 
(4) it might lead to the free and unrestricted sale of 
liquor, or at least make it difficult for the General As- 
sembly to enact any law to regulate the liquor traffic, 
and (5) possibly this section was a trap.’ 

Exactly the opposite effect of the Civil War on the 


1 Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the 
Revision of the Constitution of the State of Ohio, 1850-1851. Vol. 2, 
Pp. 713-14. 


84 SELECTED (ARTICLES 


first wave of state-wide prohibition was produced by the 
World War on the second wave which began in 1907 
in Georgia, and spread chiefly through the south and 
west until thirty states had been added to the three 
already on the prohibition list. 

Forty of the states, at one time or another, have 
adopted state-wide prohibition, several of them after- 
ward repealing it, and some of them later adopting it 
again. All of these facts are shown in the accompanying 
list. At the time the Eighteenth Amendment to the Fed- 
eral Constitution went into effect state-wide prohibition 
was the law in thirty-three states, or more than two- 
thirds of the states of the union, eighteen of them hav- 
ing written it into their constitutions. 


STATE-WIDE PROHIBITION 


Statutory or 


NO; State constitutional Adopted Repealed 
TM aine a tenn) fae tier ates Statutory 1846 1856 
20 LU IN OLS Meri ere ieee. thats Statutory 1851 1853 
ora Massachusetts w.cea.s «6 Statutory 1852 1868 
AUN ORIT OL iia lea Cetera ee Statutory 1852 1903 
Com RDOGe wm Slandi were cen Statutory 1853 1863 
OWAMiehigane dive useet ee sae Statutory 1853 1875 
7 (COMMECLICH iat lais tie ietalers Statutory 1854 1872 
Qidelawa oe avertl het stae re Statutory 1855 1857 
OM nda aera tata Statutory 1855 1858 

TOUR LO Wass oe ton deco eee: Statutory 1855 1857 

TT Ebraskaue ouster Statutory 1855 1858 

i2” New Hampshire ses Statutory 1855 1903 

E32 N EW jiViOLk Sten eeu be oe Statutory 1855 1856 
TOM aine at nem ete arate Statutory 1858 

TAM KansSasice tous ii ere Statutory 1867 
aw Massachusetts maine Statutory 1869 1875 
Svihnhode: island eeu Statutory 1874 1875 

TAYE IC ONISAaS Soak one ees Constitutional 1880 

1OmLOWat eee tant Constitutional 1882 1883 
Te Mlaine * 4 ee a eae Constitutional 1884 

TOMDLO Wale hyi cies a athe eet aera Statutory 1884. 1804 
Ea OGe, Lslanid. ma aaae ne Contitutional 1886 1889 

Logo outa akota manne Constitutional 1889 18096 

TOWeNiorths Dakotat?.e wesc Constitutional 1889 

I 7A eOrota 21) 0s. Pee Gna Statutory 1907 

IS. Oklahoma sc. se eww Constitutional 1907 


See notes 1, 2, 3 and * page 8s. 


PROHIBITION 85 


STATE-WIDE PROHIBITION (Continued) 


Statutory or 


No. State constitutional Adopted Repealed 
Poreavamar. wb tala) eet Statutory 1908 IQII 
Soaav ort Carolina ys Ga Statutory 1908 
UM NITSSISSIN DE crys ein) oh yoke Statutory 1908 
BZVENTICSSEE?. (40. ohio: Statutory 1909 
Bo MaVV ESP ia iroinia kek: Constitutional 1912 
BAMMOTOTACO Mayen eae ale sayee Constitutional 1914 
POMPEY PIMA ccna 6 eee lac Statutory 1914 
UME VTIZOH ANT UR) ih) Oo Uomo ts Constitutional IQI4 
QIN ECOOUVS Pie a caldce G04 '03 Sie Constitutional IQIA 
em VV ASHANETOTMIFy ve sicrs a ae) s Statutory IQI4 
DO MOAT RONG asin, (aise eva ks Statutory IQI5 
S08 lok Rake dete) hgh Boy Ae ap ea Statutory IQI5 
TE LOM eae) ve cis suis, sleet Statutory IQI5 
PURI ALTLA CLs Sh dae waiic ls alcholic t Statutory IQIS 
ime SOUT CG ATOLUTA Tc). ole Statutory IQI5 
Ome Viichivan HPs sae a Constitutional 1916 
REMC UT AS Kaci owe aks Constitutional 1916 
Poe South Wakotay i... Constitutional 1916 
SA MEIMOR TATA EN ott ae ses Constitutional 1916 
OM LC AIIOM WE alos Tactile nid ste Constitutional 1916 
BAP Aire eth y eas cseiee vs Statutory IOI7 
OMIM Ago cate ence hee 8 Statutory IQI7 
12° New Hampshire ...... Statutory 1917 
aa) New Mexico *.....3..., Constitutional IQI7 
GORI ODIC Ase mio ce .celn ce sitivl ats. s Constitutional 1918 
COMC)IELO a ontae hee) a ee anata ernie’ s Constitutional 1918 
AMEN VOUIING Cis Ser). Le fel Constitutional 1918 
MO PING UAC mi. ob ds ache Statutory 1918 
RMR SAG OS Ube eedisise sev Ga saree Statutory 1918 
soi fad OF age EA aarp ee aed Constitutional 1918 
Pam et IGKYitas til te uliere 2s Constitutional IQIQ 
OMe 8 Sits heaps sce atc nha ys Constitutional 1919 


1 Strengthened by a law passed in 1851. 

2 Strengthened by a law passed in 1915. 

3 Declared unconstitutional by the courts 
*Ratified by the voters in a referendum election. 


This list shows that state-wide prohibition was 
adopted by action of state legislatures on twenty-four 
occasions, and that it was ratified by the voters on thirty- 
four other occasions. On more occasions it has been 
considered by legislatures and not enacted into law, and 
on about the same number it has been submitted to the 
voters and rejected or repealed by them. In Wisconsin 


86 SELECTED “ARTICLES 


in 1855 and in Utah in 1909 and in 1915 a prohibition 
bill passed both houses of the legislature, but was vetoed 
by the governor. A prohibition amendment to the state 
constitution received a majority of the votes cast on the 
question, but failed of adoption because it did not re- 
ceive a majority of all votes cast at that election, in Ohio 
in 1883 and in Minnesota in 1918. 

Prohibition has also been adopted in several of the 
territories. It was in effect in Minnesota, Nebraska, and 
Oklahoma before they were admitted as states. It was 
the law of Alaska from 1884 to 1899. In 1917 it was 
adopted in Alaska, Porto Rico, and the District of Co- 
lumbia, and in 1918 in Hawaii. In Alaska and Porto Rico 
it was ratified by the voters. 

Step by step the anti-alcohol movement in the United 
States has developed new methods and new objectives. 
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was con- 
fined to local restrictive and regulatory measures. Early 
in the nineteenth century temperance societies were or- 
ganized. At first these were local and independent bodies, 
but they soon merged into national societies, and then 
into national fraternal societies whose chief teaching 
was temperance. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
century the word temperance was used to mean the 
temperate or moderate use of alcoholic liquors. By 1820 
it was ordinarily used to mean the temperate use of 
the milder liquors and total abstinence as regards ardent 
spirits. By 1830 most people used it to mean total ab- 
stinence. 

As the first wave of state-wide prohibition receded 
and the temperance cause seemed to be losing ground, 
the prohibition party was organized in 1869. Five years 
later the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union 
was organized. And finally in 1893, a new chapter in 
the history of the anti-alcohol movement begins with the 
organization of the Anti-Saloon League. This organi- 
zation brought to the contest more efficient leaders and 
more efficient and modern methods of organization, 


PROHIBITION 87 


action, and propaganda. It maintained a keen and alert 
organized lobby at Washington and at most of the state 
capitals. It played politics across and through party 
lines, the same as the liquor interests had. It used its 
own papers and magazines; it got its material into news- 
papers and periodicals; and it published a great number 
of pamphlets, leaflets, bulletins, posters, books, and re- 
ports. It organized the leading Protestant Churches, 
and worked through them. It raised sufficient funds to 
carry on its work, and made fund raising an important 
part of its work. It has its national headquarters and 
printing plant at Westerville, Ohio, and its legislative 
headquarters at Washington. In its name, Anti-Saloon 
League, it directs public attention to the greatest evil 
in connection with the liquor traffic. It is the church 
militant against the saloon. With this organization, then, 
began a new chapter in the anti-alcohol movement, new 
in its leaders, new in its methods, and new in its 
objective, which was to put an end to the saloon. 

As a nation-wide measure by an amendment to the 
Federal Constitution, prohibition was first introduced 
in Congress in 1876 by Henry W. Blair, a great moral 
pioneer who was then a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives from the state of New Hampshire. This 
resolution did not come to a vote. Later Mr. Blair was 
elected to the United States Senate where he served 
two terms. He introduced a similar resolution in the 
Senate in the 49th and 50th Congresses, in both of which 
it was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, 
by whom it was reported back favorably. In neither 
Congress did it come to a vote, but in the closing days 
of the 50th Congress, on March 2, 1889, Senator Blair 
moved to proceed to consider the resolution, saying he 
did not want it debated, but that since the matter had 
been before Congress for fourteen years, he thought it 
ought to come to a vote as a matter of record. His mo- 
tion was lost by a vote of thirteen to thirty-three. 

In 1913 the Anti-Saloon League, then twenty years 


88 SELECT EDVARTICUES 


old, decided at its fifteenth national convention, held in 
the second week of November at Columbus, Ohio, to 
launch its campaign for national prohibition. About a 
month later the proposed amendment, as approved by 
the league, was introduced in both houses of Congress, 
in the Senate by Senator Morris Sheppard, and in the 
lower house by Richmond P. Hobson. About a year 
later, on December 22, 1914, the Hobson resolution 
was debated and voted on in the House of Representa- 
tives, the first time that nation-wide prohibition by con- 
stitutional amendment had ever come to a vote in either 
house of Congress. The proposed amendment was de- 
feated because it did not get the necessary two-thirds 
vote required for an amendment to the Constitution, 
although it did get a majority vote of the members 
voting on it, the vote being one hundred ninety-seven for 
it and one hundred eighty-nine against it. In the Senate 
the Sheppard resolution did not come to a vote in this 
Congress. 

Similar resolutions were introduced in both houses 
of Congress in 1915 after the 64th Congress had as- 
sembled. In each house the resolution was referred to 
the judiciary committee, and each of the judiciary com- 
mittees made a favorable report, recommending the adop- 
tion of the resolution, but neither house acted on the 
report. 

Again in the 65th Congress, which met in 1917, a 
similar resolution was introduced in each house, again 
referred to the judiciary committee in each house, again 
reported favorably by both judiciary committees, and 
then passed by both houses by the necessary two-thirds 
vote. In the Senate the vote was sixty-five to twenty 
and in the House of Representatives it was two hun- 
dred eighty-two to one hundred twenty-eight. The 
final Congressional action was taken on December 
18, 1917. The matter was then before the states for 
their ratification, the favorable action of three-fourths 
of the states being necessary to make the resolution a 


PROHIBITION 89 


part of the Constitution. On January 8, 1918, just 
three weeks later, Mississippi was the first state to ratify 
it. On January 16, 1919 Nebraska was the thirty-sixth 
state to ratify the resolution, thus making it a part of 
the Constitution from that date. A dozen more states 
afterward ratified it, although their action was not neces- 
sary to secure its adoption. Only two states failed to 
ratify it, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and in each of 
these one house of the legislature voted to ratify it. In 
Kansas where state-wide prohibition had been in effect 
for almost forty years, it was ratified by a unanimous 
vote in both houses within two hours after the legislature 
had been called to order. In five other states the rati- 
fication was unanimous in both houses of the legislature. 

By the terms of the resolution it was to become 
effective one year after the day the thirty-sixth state 
ratified it, which would be January 16th, 1920. On 
October 28, 1919, the National Prohibition Act (the 
Volstead Law) became a law, being passed over the veto 
of President Wilson. The Act Supplemental to the Na- 
tional Prohibition Act (the Anti-Beer Bill) was approved 
by President Harding on November 23, 1921. 

The following chronological table gives the high spots 
in the three hundred years’ struggle over the liquor 
question in America. 


MILESTONES IN THE PROGRESS OF ‘PROHIBITION 2 


1619 Virginia enacts a law against drunkenness. 

1630 Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts discontin- 
ues the custom of drinking healths and requests 
others to do likewise. 

1631 Virginia enacts a law to prevent clergymen from 
getting drunk. 

1633 Massachusetts Bay enacts a law that no person 
shall sell liquors without the consent of the 
governor, and that no strong drink shall be 
sold to the Indians. 


1 By Lamar T. Beman. 


SELECTEDVARTICLES 


Massachusetts prohibits the sale of strong liquor 
to Indians. 

Maryland enacts a law against drunkenness, pun- 
ishing it with a fine of thirty pounds of tobacco, 
or corporal punishment if the party is unable 
to pay the fine. 

Maryland increases the fine for drunkenness to 
one hundred pounds of tobacco. 

New York prohibits sale of liquor to the Indians. 

Connecticut forbids the sale of liquors without 
a license. 

New York increases the excise tax on beer. The 
brewers’ refusal to pay the tax is called the 
“Beer: Rebellion.” 

Massachusetts enacts a law that no person shall 
be allowed to loiter in a saloon for more than 
a half hour. 

Connecticut prohibits the sale of intoxicating liq- 
uors to Indians. 

Rhode Island adopts a license law. 

New York enacts a law prohibiting the sale of 
liquor after nine o’clock in the evening, and 
before four o’clock in the afternnon on Sunday. 

New York enacts a law to prevent brewers from 
retailing beer, and saloon keepers from brew- 
ing beer. 

On account of a short wheat crop, New York 
prohibits the use of wheat in making beer. 

New York enacts a law fixing the price at which 
liquors are to be sold because of the high prices 
being charged. 

Pennsylvania prohibits the sale of liquor to 
Indians. 

Connecticut fixes by law the prices at which lig- 
uor is to be sold. 

Virginia enacts a law by which drunkenness is 
fined fifty pounds of tobacco for the first of- 
fence. 


1660 


1660 
1666 


1668 


1676 


1692 


PROHIBITION Ol 


Virginia enacts a law to license saloon keepers, 
charging them an annual fee of three hundred 
and fifty pounds of tobacco. 

Plymouth prohibits the sale of liquor to children. 
servants, drunkards, and sale on Sundays. 
Maryland fixes by law the prices of liquor a saloon 

keeper may charge. 

Virginia enacts a law to decrease the number of 
saloons. The act declares that there are an 
excessive number of saloons set up for private 
gain, and that they are “full of mischiefe and 
inconvenience by cherishing idleness and de- 
baucheryes.” 

Virginia adopts a law to punish justices of the 
peace who are drunk on court days, for the 
first offence a fine of five hundred pounds of 
tobacco, for the second offence a fine of one 
thousand pounds of tobacco, for the third of- 
fence forfeiture of office. 

New Jersey enacts a law to hold saloon keepers 
liable for distrubances caused by liquor sold on 
Sunday. 

New Jersey adopts a law prohibiting the sale of 
any liquor to any Indian on pain of twenty 
lashes for the first offence, thirty lashes for 
the second offence, and imprisonment during 
the governor’s pleasure for the third offence. 

Pennsylvania adopts a strict law against drunk- 
enness and selling liquor to the Indians. 

South Carolina requires persons selling liquor to 
have a license from the governor. : 

Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milborne hanged in New 
York by order of the governor signed after he 
had been made drunk by the enemies of Leisler 
and Milborne and kept drunk all night lest he 
might withdraw his order if he became sober. 

Maryland passes a law to limit the number of 
saloons. 


Q2 


1694 


1695 


1697 
1701 


1710 


1718 


1719 


1724 


1734 
1747 


1748 


1757 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


Massachusetts enacts a law against selling liquor 
to drunkards, making it punishable by a fine 
of 20 shillings and providing that a list of the 
names of drunkards must be posted in every 
saloon. 

Rev. John Miller wrote “A Description of the 
Province and City of New York” in which he 
described the drunken debaucheries of the times. 

New York prohibits visiting saloons on Sunday. 

Pennsylvania adopts a law against adulterating 
liquors, and doubles the penalty for selling liq- 
uor to Indians. 

The prevalence of bootlegging leads Virginia to 
enact a law against the unlawful sale of liquor. 

Pennsylvania adopts a law to compel saloon 
keepers to give security in the sum of £100 
for faithful observance of the laws against sell- 
ing liquor to minors, servants, or Indians, or 
selling at prices above the fixed rates. 

New Hampshire makes a law prohibiting the sale 
of liquor to drunkards, and orders their names 
posted in public houses. 

Pennsylvania enacts a law preventing the grant- 
ing of a license to any one to sell liquor within 
two miles of any furnace or iron works. 

Georgia prohibits the importation of rum. 

Maryland enacts a law that no liquor is to be 
sold within two miles of any meeting house of 
the Quakers. 

Virginia provides by law that the license of any 
saloon keeper may be revoked if on Sunday he 
lets anybody get drunk or “drink more than is 
necessary.” 

A Pennsylvania law prohibited the sale of liquor 
within two miles of any muster field or drill 
ground. 


1778 


1800 


1802 


PROHIBITION 93 


The Governor of New York, in a message to the 
Assembly, recommends the adoption of a law 
to restrict or limit the number of saloons. 

Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography, 
“If it be the design of Providence to extirpate 
these savages (the Indians) in order to make 
room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not 
improbable that rum may be the appointed 
means. It has already annihilated all the tribes 
who formerly inhabited the sea-coast.’’ 

On account of the scarcity of grain and the neces- 
sity of feeding the Revolutionary Army, Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia, and Maryland enact laws to 
prohibit the distilling of grain. 

The Indians of western Pennsylvania decide in 
council to spill all liquor sent among them. 
Dr. Benjamin Rush published his book entitled 
“An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits 

upon the Human Body and Mind.” 

Two hundred farmers of Litchfield County, Conn., 
pledge themselves not to use any distilled liquor 
during the ensuing farming season. 

The Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. 
The laws of the United States are openly vio- 
lated and Federal officials are defied and ridi- 
culed, some of them being assaulted or driven 
out of that district, by the distillers, saloon 
keepers, and their sympathizers until President 
Washington sends an army of fifteen thou- 
sand men to enforce the law. 

Micajah Pendleton of Nelson County, Virginia, 
signs and circulates the first total abstinence 
pledge. 

On January 27 President Jefferson sent a mes- 
sage to Congress in which he said “the Indians 
are becoming very sensible of the baneful ef- 
fects produced on their morals, their health 
and existence by the abuse of ardent spirits and 


04 


1802 


1805 
1808 


1813 


1813 


1815 


1816 


SELECTED: ARTICLES 


some of them earnestly desire a prohibition of 
that article from being carried among them. 
The Legislature will consider whether the ef- 
fectuating of that desire would not be in the 
spirit of benevolence and liberality which they 
have hitherto practiced toward these our neigh- 
bors, and which has had so happy an effect 
toward conciliating their friendship. It has 
been found, too, in our experience that the 
same abuse gives frequent rise to incidents tend- 
ing much to commit our peace with the Indians.” 


On March 30 Congress enacted a law which made 
provision that “The President of the United 
States be authorized to take such measures from 
time to time as may appear to him expedient to 
prevent or restrain the vending or distributing of 
spirituous liquors among all or any of the said 
Indian tribes.” 


The Sober Society is formed at Allentown, N.J. 


The first Temperance Society was organized at 
Moreau, Saratoga County, N.Y., by Dr. B. J. 
Clark. 


Congress enacts a law “for laying duties on 
licenses to retailers of wines and spirituous 
liquors. ” 

The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of 
Intemperance organized at Boston. 


Congress enacts a law providing that any one 
establishing a still in the Indian country shall 
be fined $500 and shall forfeit the still. 


Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Charles Yancey, 
dated January 6, 1816, (which was about seven 
years after he had retired from the Presidency) 
said, ‘I wish to see this beverage (beer) become 
common instead of the whiskey which kills one- 
third of our citizens and ruins their families.” 


1819 


1826 


PROHIBITION 95 


The Cherokee Nation, one of the most advanced 
groups of Indians who then lived in Georgia, 
adopts prohibition. 

The American Society for the Promotion of Tem- 
perance organized at the Park Street Church 
in Boston. 

Georgia adopts the first local option law, giving 
to the inferior courts of two counties the right 
of local option. 

The Congressional Temperance Society organized 
at Washington, D.C. 

The first National Temperance Convention held 
at Philadelphia with four hundred forty dele- 
gates from twenty-two states. 

Congress passes a new law to prevent the sale 
of liquor to the Indians, strengthening the acts 
Gee leopandgloogc, 

Rhode Island passes a local option law, giving 
the towns the right to prohibit the manufacture 
and sale of intoxicating liquors. 

The Washington Temperance Society organized 
at Baltimore and advocates total abstinence. 
The Sons of Temperance organized in New York 

City. 

The Templars of Honor and Temperance organ- 
ized at Providence. 

Maine becomes the first state to adopt a state- 
wide prohibition law. 

The United States Supreme Court hands down 
its decision in the license cases, in which Chief 
Justice Taney, speaking for the court, said, 
(p. 576-7) “If any state deems the retail and 
internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its 
citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, 
vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the Con- 
stitution of the United States to prevent it 
from regulating and restraining the traffic, or 


06 


1849 


SELECTEDGARTICOES 


from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks 
proper. (46 U.S. 504) 
Neal Dow is elected mayor of Portland, Me. 


1849-1851 Father Mathew visits the United States and 


1851 


1851 
1851 
1853 


1854 


1862 


makes an extended tour of the country. 

Ohio writes into its new constitution the follow- 
ing meaningless section, probably designed to 
please the liquor interests and fool the temper- 
ance people: “Article 15, Section 9. No license 
to traffic in intoxicating liquors shall hereafter 
be granted in this state; but the General As- 
sembly may, by law, provide against the evils 
resulting therefrom.” 

The Maine state-wide prohibition law is amended 
so as to strengthen it very greatly. 

The Independent Order of Good Templars is 
founded in central New York. 

The World’s Temperance Convention is held in 
New York City. 

Ohio passed its Civil Damage Act as a remedy 
for the evils of the liquor traffic. This law pro- 
hibited the sale of intoxicating liquors in any 
quantity to be consumed on the premises where 
sold, prohibited any sale to minors and intoxi- 
cated persons, and gave to any wife, child, 
parent, guardian, employer, or other person in- 
jured in person, property, or means of support 
by any intoxicated person, or in consequence 
of intoxication or otherwise, in violation of 
this law, a right of action in court in his own 
name against the person who sold the liquor 
for all damages actually sustained as well as 
exemplary damages. 

Congress passes a law to prohibit any person 
from selling any spiritous liquor to any Indian 
under charge of an Indian agent appointed by 
the United States. 


1862 


1865 


1869 


1870 


1871 


1872 


PROHIBITION 97 


The United States Navy abolishes rations of 
spiritous liquors. 

The National Temperance Society and Publica- 
tion House organized with its headquarters in 
New York City. 

The National Prohibition Party organized at Chi- 
cago by five hundred delegates, representing 
twenty states. 

The Order of Royal Templars of Temperance or- 
ganized at Buffalo, as the result of an effort to 
close the saloons of that city on Sunday. 

The United Friends of Temperance organized at 
Nashville, Tenn. 

The Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America 
formed at Baltimore, one hundred twenty- 
five social societies being represented. Local or- 
ganizations of this kind had existed before this 
time, some of them having been organized dur- 
ing the visit of Father Mathew, but there had 
been no bond of union among them until this 
time. 

The Woman’s Temperance Crusade at Hillsboro, 
Ohio. 

The National Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union organized at Cleveland, Ohio. 

The Congregational Total Abstinence Society or- 
ganized. 

The first proposal in Congress to amend the 
Federal Constitution to provide for nation-wide 
prohibition is introduced by Henry W. Blair, 
a representative from New Hampshire. 

The International Temperance Congress meets at 
Philadelphia. 

President Hayes refuses to serve liquor at the 
White House. 

In its decision in the case of Beer Company vs. 


Massachusetts (97 U.S. 25) the United States 


1880 
1881 
1881 


1883 


1884 


1886 


1886 


1887 


SEUECVED VARICES 


Supreme Court said, (p. 32) “If the public 
safety or the public morals require the dis- 
continuance of any manufacture or traffic, the 
hand of the legislature cannot be stayed from 
providing for its discontinuance by any inci- 
dental inconvenience which individuals or cor- 
porations may suffer.” 

Kansas is the first state to write state-wide pro- 
hibition into its constitution. 

The Church Temperance Society of the Protes- 
tant Episcopal is organized in New York City. 

Nebraska is the first state to adopt high license 
as a remedy. 

The Law and Order League of the United States 
is organized at Boston by representatives of 
twenty-seven local leagues. 

Prohibition is adopted for all Alaska by action 
of Congress. 

Congress enacts a law providing for compulsory 
temperance education in the public schools of 
the District of Columbia. 

On March 28th P. M. Arthur, Grand Chief of the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, said in 
a speech at Cleveland, “If I could, I would in- 
augurate a strike that would drive the liquor 
traffic from the face of the earth.” 

In the case of Mugler vs. Kansas (123,U.S. 623) 
the Supreme Court of the United States said, 
(p.662) “We cannot shut out of view the fact, 
within the knowledge of all, that the public 
health, the public morals, and the public safety 
may be endangered by the general use of in- 
toxicating drinks; nor the fact, established by 
statistics accessible to everyone, that the idle- 
ness, disorder, pauperism, and crime existing 
in the country are, in some degree at least, 
traceable to this evil. If, therefore, a state 
deems the absolute prohibition of the manu- 


PROHIBITION 99 


facture and sale, within her limits, of intoxi- 
cating liquors for other than medical, scien- 
tific, and manufacturing purposes, to be neces- 
sary to the peace and security of society, the 
courts cannot, without usurping legislative func- 
tions, override the will of the people.” 

1888 The United States Supreme Court says in the 
case of Bowman vs. C. & N.W. R.R. (125 U.S. 
465) that a state cannot, for the purpose of 
protecting its people against the evils of in- 
temperance, enact laws which regulate com- 
merce between its people and those of other 
states of the union, unless the consent of Con- 
gress, express or implied, is first obtained. 

1889 On March 2 by a vote of thirteen to thirty-three 
the United States Senate defeated a motion “‘to 
procede to consider” Senator Blair’s resolution 
to propose an amendment to the Federal Con- 
stitution to provide for nation-wide prohibition. 

1890 On April 28 the Supreme Court of the United 
States rendered its decision in the case of Leisy 
vs. Hardin (135 U.S. 100) commonly known 
as “the original package case,” in which it held 
unconstitutional as repugnant to the Federal 
Constitution the provisions of the prohibition 
law of Iowa, which prohibited shipping into 
Iowa liquor made in another state and selling it 
in lowa in the original packages or kegs, un- 
broken or unopened. 

1890 The Non-Partisan Woman’s Christian Temper- 
ance Union organized by a faction that seceded 
from the parent organization. 

1890 On August 8th President Harrison approved the 
Wilson Act, by which Congress sought to make 
all intoxicating liquors in interstate commerce 
subject to the laws of the state into which they 
were shipped, or, in other words, to remove 
the legal difficulties in the enforcement of the 


100 SELCECTEDY ARTIGIES 


state prohibition laws that had been created by 
the decision in the original package case. 

1890 On November 10th in the decision it handed down 
in the case of Crowley vs. Christensen (137 U.S. 
86) the United States Supreme Court said, 
(p. 91) “By the general concurrence of opinion 
of every civilized and Christian community, 
there are few sources of crime and misery to 
society equal to the dramshop, where intoxi- 
cating liquors, in small quantities, to be drunk 
at the time, are sold indiscriminately to all 
parties applying. ‘The statistics of every state 
show a greater amount of crime and misery 
attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained 
at these retail liquor saloons than to any other 
source.” 

1892 South Carolina adopts the state dispensary sys- 
tem to become effective July 1, 1893. This was 
a compromise between the prohibitionists and 
the liquor interests, and was made after the 
lower house of the legislature had passed a 
state-wide prohibition law. 

1893 The Anti-Saloon League is organized at Oberlin, 
Ohio, by Howard H. Russell. 

1893-1903 The Committee of Fifty makes a careful 
study of the liquor problem in its different 
phases and publishes: (1) “The Liquor Prob- 
lem in its Legislative Aspects,” 1897. (2) “Eco- 
nomic Aspects of the Liquor Problem,” 1899. 
(3) ‘Substitates¢-tor’ the; Saloon; 1901, 
“Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem,” 
2. vols.,/'490350(5) 4 The* Liquor) Problem sie. 
Summary of the Investigations Conducted by 
the Committee of Fifty,” 1905. 

1893 The World’s Temperance Congress is held at Chi- 
cago on June 5-7. Among the able addresses 
was one by Rev. J. B. Dunn of Boston on the 
subject “Are beer and light wines to be en- 


PROHIBITION IOI 


couraged as against the stronger distilled liq- 
uors?” 


1894 Governor Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina 


1898 


1898 


1899 


1899 


1901 
1902 


wrote an article for the North American Re- 
view (Vol.9158," p; 513-19), May, 01894) en- 
titled “Our Whiskey Rebellion,” in which he 
described the violations of the state dispensary 
law, called the “Ten Days Whiskey War,” in 
which several persons were killed or wounded, 
and in which a considerable part of the state 
militia refused to obey the orders of the gov- 
ernor. 

The Reform Bureau, afterward known as the 
International Reform Bureau, and now known 
as the World Prohibition and Reform Federa- 
tion, was founded at Washington, D.C., by Dr. 
Wilbur F. Crafts. 

The United States Commissioner of Labor pub- 
lished as his twelfth annual report a volume 
entitled “The Economic Aspects of the Liquor 
Problem.” 

Edward W. Bok said in a public address, “The 
presidents of the two largest railroads in this 
country have each told me personally within the 
past year that they will no longer employ any 
man for any position on their roads who drinks 
even moderately.” 

Prohibition is abandoned in Alaska and high 
license adopted in its place by act of Congress. 

The Secretary of the Navy issues an order pro- 
hibiting traffic in alcoholic liquor on ship-board 
and at naval stations. 

Congress adopts the Anti-Canteen Law. 

Congress passes the New Hebrides Bill, by which 
Americans are prohibited from selling intoxi- 
cating liquors to the natives of the Pacific Is- 
lands. 


102 


1903 


1904 


1905 


1907 


1907 


1909 


1911 


1911 


SELECTED ARTICLES 


The Five Civilized Tribes oppose any plan to ad- 
mit Oklahoma as a state which would endanger 
the prohibition laws. 

The Subway Tavern, a temperance saloon, 1s 
opened in New York city by a group of public 
spirited citizens who wished to try the experi- 
ment of providing a place for selling liquors in 
clean decent surroundings where every effort 
would be made to prevent the abuses and ex- 
cesses of the ordinary saloon as a remedy for 
evils of the liquor traffic. 

After about one year of operation, the Subway 
Tavern fails, killed by the competition of three 
low class saloons in the immediate vicinity. 

Georgia adopts state-wide prohibition, beginning 
the second movement for state-wide prohibition 
among the states. 

South Carolina abandons its experiment with the 
state dispensary system, and adopts a county 
option system, permitting each county to choose 
between a county dispensary system and county 
prohibition. 

Nebraska adopts a law compelling saloons to close 
at eight o’clock in the evening and remain 
closed until seven o’clock in the morning. 

On February 2, Captain Richmond P. Hobson, 
the hero of the Spanish War, delivered in Con- 
gress his address entitled “The Great De- 
stroyer,’ two million copies of which were dis- 
tributed through the country. 

On Sunday, December 10th, investigators repre- 
senting the Baptist Brotherhood, visit sixteen 
hundred thirty saloons in the city of Cleve- 
land and find fifteen hundred thirty-four 
wide open and doing a rushing business in 
violation of the state law, many of them selling 
liquor to children in violation of another state 


PROHIBITION 103 


law, and quite a number of them having music 
in the barrooms in violation of a city ordinance. 

1913 At the annual meeting of the Baptist Brotherhood 
of Cleveland fourteen months after their in- 
vestigation of the saloons of the city it was 
reported that a committee of the Brotherhood 
had called on the mayor (Newton D. Baker) 
from whom they got no satisfaction at all, and 
on the chief of police (Fred Kohler) who was 
“very abusive” and immediately threw into his 
waste basket the affidavits which the commit- 
tee gave him concerning violation of the Sun- 
day closing law. 

1913 A proposed prohibition amendment to the Federal 
Constitution, approved and endorsed by the 
Anti-Saloon League, was introduced in both 
houses of Congress. 

1913. On March 1, the Webb-Kenyon law was passed 
over the veto of President Taft. This law pro- 
hibits the shipment in interstate commerce of 
intoxicating liquors when they are intended to 
be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner 
used by any one in violation of any law of 
the state or territory into which they are 
shipped. There is no penalty attached to this 
law. Prosecutions were to be in the state 
courts and for violation of the state prohibi- 
tion laws. This act simply removed the pro- 
tection which the Federal Constitution and 
laws give to interstate commerce from those 
criminals who wished to violate the state pro- 
hibition laws. 

1914 The Wisconsin State Vice Committee made its 
report in which it said, “The chief cause of 
the downfall of women and girls is the close 
connection between alcoholic drinks and com- 
mercialized vice,” 


104 


1914 


1914 


Lois 


(O15 


1917 


1917 


1918 


1910 


L919 


SELEGTEDVARTICLES 


The Commission to Investigate Drunkenness in 
Massachusetts made its report in which it said, 
“Massachusetts prison statistics show that 96 
per cent of all criminals in our prisons in 1912 
were intemperate by habit.” 

For the first time a proposed amendment to the 
Federal Constitution providing for nation-wide 
prohibition was voted on in the National House 
of Representatives. On December 22, the Hob- 

. son resolution got a majority of the votes cast, 
but was defeated because it failed to get the 
two-thirds vote necessary for an amendment 
to the Constitution. 

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers at its 
triennial convention votes unanimously to in- 
dorse national and state-wide prohibition. 

Whisky and brandy are dropped from United 
States Pharmacopoeia. 

On January 8 the United States Supreme Court 
sustained the constitutionality of the Webb- 
Kenyon Law in the case of Clark Distilling Co. 
vs. Western Maryland Railway Co. and the 
State of West Virginia. (242 U.S. 311) 

On December 18, Congress passes the Eighteenth 
Amendment and submits it to the states for 
ratification. 

On November 21, Congress enacts the War Pro- 
hibition Act, to become effective on July 1, 1919. 

On January 14, both houses of the legislature of 
Kansas (which had had state-wide prohibition 
for almost forty years) ratify the Eighteenth 
Amendment by unanimous vote within two 
hours after they have been called to order for 
the first time since the amendment was pro- 
posed by Congress. 

On January 16, Nebraska ratifies the Eight- 
eenth Amendment. Being the 36th state to 
ratify, this makes ratification lawfully complete. 


1919 


1920 
1AVA0) 


1920 


1921 


1921 


|e af 


1922 


1923 


1923 


PROHIBITION 105 


Twelve more states ratified it later, leaving only 
two, Connecticut and Rhode Island, that did 
not ratify it, but even in these two, one house 
of the legislature voted to ratify. 

On October 28, the National Prohibition Act (the 
Volstead Law) for the enforcement of the 
Eighteenth Amendment was passed by Congress 
over the veto of President Wilson. 

On January 16, the Eighteenth Amendment and 
the Volstead Act become effective. 

The New York Legislature adopts a law permit- 
ting manufacture and sale of 2.75 per cent beer. 

On June 7 the Supreme Court sustains the con- 
stitutionality of the Eighteenth Amendment and 
the Volstead Act, affirming the right of Congress 
to determine what is an intoxicating liquor. 
(25 an esa 35) 

On November 23, the Anti-Beer bill is signed by 
President Harding and becomes a law. 

New York adopts a law to enforce the Ejight- 
eenth Amendment. 

President Angell of Yale said in his baccalaureate 
address, “The violation of law has never been 
so general nor so widely condoned as at 
present.” 

In his annual address to Congress on December 
8 President Harding said, “Constitutional pro- 
hibition has been adopted by the nation. It is 
the supreme law of the land. In plain speak- 
ing, there are conditions relating to its enforce- 
ment which savor of nation-wide scandal. It 
is the most demoralizing factor in our public 
ites 

New York repeals its act to enforce the Eigh- 
teenth Amendment. 

Negotiations with Great Britain to extend the 
three-mile limit, in an effort to check the 


100 SELECTED ARTICLES 


operations of criminals who are smuggling 
liquor into this country. 

1923 The Supreme Court decides that the Eighteenth 
Amendment and the Volstead Act apply to all 
merchant vessels, both domestic and foreign, 
when within the territorial waters of the United 
States, and do not apply to domestic vessels 
when outside our territorial waters. 

1924 The Supreme Court sustains the Anti-Beer Law 
as constitutional. 


BRIBEPVEXCERP ITS 


The nation has deliberately, after many years of con- 
sideration, adopted the present policy, which is written 
into the Eighteenth Amendment.—President Harding. 
Outlook. 134:73. May 30, 1923. 


Nothing in our history is more remarkable than the 
steady growth of the prohibition movement. Beginning 
as a moral movement, it has become economic, social, 
and political—IJmogen B. Oakley. Annals of the Amert- 
can Academy. 109:166. September, 1923. 


The prohibition movement in the United States has 
been an evolution rather than a revolution, each period 
plainly revealing a more advanced temperance sentiment 
and a more aggressive attitude of opposition to the 
beverage liquor traffic than that shown in the preceeding 
period.—Ernest H. Cherrington. The Evolution of Pro- 
hibition in the United States. p. 3. 


To one who studies the history of the prohibition 
movement, it is quite evident that it is a very old move- 
ment, and not a freakish development of the last decade. 
There are many who claim that the prohibitionists have, 
by a stroke of national strategy, “pulled the wool” over 


PROHIBITION 107 


the eyes of the American public. The evidence does 
not support this view. It appears more likely that the 
growing sentiment in favor of temperance was finally 
crystallized in the form of the Eighteenth Amendment. 
—Eugene J. Benge. Annals of the American Academy. 
109:111. September. 1923. 
t 

Prohibition was written into the Constitution with 
as much deliberation as attended the enactment of any 
amendment to the Constitution. It is sheer caricature 
to convey the impression, as do writers like Mr. Fabian 
Franklin, that the eighteenth amendment came like a 
thief in the night, and as a result of the machinations 
of the Anti-Saloon League. Prohibition was the cul- 
mination of fifty years of continuous effort; nor did the 
movement lack alert, persistent, and powerful opposi- 
tion.—Feliz Frankfurter. Annals of the American Acad- 
emy. 109:193. September, 1923. 


No [other] amendment to the federal Constitution 
ever received as strong official sanction by the states as 
the Eighteenth Amendment. The original Constitution 
was adopted in the [legislatures of the] 13 original 
states by a majority of about two to one [of the total 
number of legislators]. The aggregate vote in the state 
Senates and state Houses of Representatives on the 
Eighteenth Amendment shows a majority of more than 
four to one. The Bill of Rights, containing the first 
ten Amendments to the American Constitution, and the 
Eleventh Amendment, were ratified by 10 out of 13 
states. Four states did not ratify the Twelfth Amend- 
ment. Five states did not ratify the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment. Four states did not ratify the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment. Six states failed to ratify the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment. Six states failed to ratify the Sixteenth Amend- 
ment. Twelve states did not ratify the Seventeenth 
Amendment, and 12 states did not ratify the Nineteenth 
Amendment. The Eighteenth Amendment, however, 


108 SELECTED ARTICLES 


received the ratification of 46 out of 48 states, and one 
House in each of the two remaining states voted for 
ratification. Moreover, 47 of the 48 states enacted laws 
to help carry into effect the provisions of the Eighteenth 
Amendment, and but two of the 47 have repealed or 
weakened such laws.—Ernest H. Cherrington. Annals of 
the American Academy. 109:223. September, 1923. 


For more than 100 years prohibition was intensively 
and extensively studied and discussed. No question 
ever decided by the American people was better under- 
stood. Before national prohibition went into effect 34 
states, acting separately for themselves, had adopted pro- 
hibition. More than three-fifths of the people and four- 
fifths of the territory of the country were under pro- 
hibition. The Eighteenth Amendment was submitted by 
a vote of more than two-thirds of both houses of the 
United States Congress and has been ratified by 46 of 
the 48 states or by twenty-three twenty-fourths of them. 
The only two states which have failed to ratify to date, 
Connecticut and Rhode Island, have less than one-thirty- 
fifth of the population and a trifle more than one-five- 
hundredth of the continental area, and if the water which 
is included in these states is not counted the area is 
further reduced by more than 300 square miles.—Charles 
Scanlon. Christian Science Monitor. September 8, 1922. 


VI. THE LAW OF PROHIBITION 
THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT 


1. After one year from the ratification of this article 
the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating 
liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the ex- 
portation thereof from the United States and all ter- 
ritory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage 
purposes is hereby prohibited. 

2. The Congress and the several states shall have 
concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate 
legislation. 

3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall 
have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution 
by the legislatures of the several states, as provided by 
the Constitution, within seven years from the date of 
the submission hereof to the states by the Congress. 


SL een) Sal Ee AV 


The National Prohibition Act, commonly known as 
the Volstead Law, passed by Congress over the veto 
of President Wilson on October 28, 1919, became ef- 
fective on January 16, 1920. This law is composed of 
three parts, called titles. Title I provides for the en- 
forcement of war time. Title III is devoted to the sub- 
ject of industrial alcohol. With neither of these are 
the purposes of the present volume concerned. Title IT 
deals with the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment. Its provisions have been summarized in the 1920 
Yearbook of the Anti-Saloon League, pages 90-4, as 
follows: 


110 SELECTED ARTICLES 


Sec. 1. Definition. Intoxicating liquor is defined to include 
alcohol, brandy, whisky, rum, gin, beer, ale, porter, and wine, 
and in addition thereto any other spirituous, vinous, malt, or 
fermented liquor, liquids, and compounds, whether medicated, 
proprietary, patented, or not, and by whatever name called, con- 
taining one-half of I per centum or more of alcohol by volume 
which are fit for use for beverage purposes: Provided, however, 
That the foregoing definition shall not extend to dealcoholized 
wine nor to any liquor or liquid produced by the process by 
which beer, ale, or porter is manufactured but containing not 
more than one-half of I per centum of alcohol if such liquor 
or liquids shall be otherwise denominated than as beer, ale, or 
porter. 

Sec. 2. Arrests, Etc. Commissioner of Internal Revenue 
and his assistants to investigate and report violations of the 
bill to the local United States Attorney, who is directed to 
prosecute offenders under the Attorney General’s direction. 
Commissioner and his assistants authorized to swear out war- 
rants for arrests and search, and to conduct preliminary trials 
under control of the district attorney, R.S. 1014, which pre- 
scribes the procedure for arresting offenders in general, made 
applicable. 

Sec. 3. Prohibition. Manufacture, sale, transportation, im- 
portation, exportation, possession, etc., of intoxicating liquors 
prohibited, from the date when the Eighteenth Amendment 
takes effect, except as otherwise provided in the bill. Purchase 
and sale of warehouse receipts covering distilled spirits in 
warehouses and no tax shall attach to such sale of receipts. 

Sec. 4. Exceptions. Prohibition not to apply to: 

(a) denatured alcohol; 

(b) medicinal preparations in accordance with 
United States Pharmacopeia, etc., if unfit for 
beverage use; 

(c) patent medicines unfit for beverage uses; 

(d) toilet preparations unfit for beverage uses, hav- 
ing quantity of alcohol printed on the package; 

(e) flavoring extracts unfit for use as a beverage; 

(f) vinegar and fruit juices for the production of 
vinegar. 

Manufacturers of these articles required to obtain permits 
for such manufacture and for purchase of liquors needed as 
material, and to give bond, keep records and make reports as 
specified in the bill or by direction of the Commissioner of In- 
ternal Revenue. Manufacturers not to sell or use liquor other- 
wise than as an ingredient of articles manufactured. No more 
alcohol to be used in manufacture of extracts, etc., than is 
needed for extraction or solution of elements contained and 
for preservation. Sale of any of the articles under (a), (b), 


PROHIBITION 11l 


(c), (d) or (£), or extracts or syrups, for beverage purposes, 
or where seller might reasonably deduce intention of purchaser 
to use them for beverage purposes, or sale of beverages con- 
taining one-half of I per cent or more or alcohol by volume 
in which extracts, etc., are used as ingredients, to subject seller 
to penalties prescribed in Sec. 30. 

Sec. 5. Analysis of Manufactured Articles. Commissioner 
authorized to make analysis of any article mentioned in Sec. 4, to 
ascertain whether it corresponds to the limitations prescribed; 
if the analysis shows that it does not, he may summon the 
manufacturer to show cause why the permit should not be re- 
voked. Decision of Commissioner after hearing to be subject 
to court review. 

Sec. 6 Permits. Permits required for manufacture, sale, 
purchase, transportation or prescription of liquor, except for 
purchase of liquor prescribed by a physician. Permits for manu- 
facture, prescription, sale or transportation to continue one year, 
to expire at the close of the calendar year of issuance. Exist- 
ing permits may be extended. Permits for purchase of liquor 
to be in force not over 90 days after issuance; such permits 
to specify the quantity and kind of liquor and the purpose for 
which it is to be used. Permits not to be issued to any person 
who has violated any Federal or state liquor permit within one 
year. Retail permits to be issued only to licensed pharmacists ; 
prescription permits, only to licensed physicians in active prac- 
tice. Commissioner authorized to require bond of applicants, 
and to prescribe form of permits, etc. Decision of Commissioner 
may be reviewed in courts. Provision made for the manufacture 
and sale of wine for sacramental purposes. 

Sec. 7. Prescriptions. Liquor not to be prescribed except by 
licensed physician in active practice, and he shall not prescribe 
unless he in good faith believes that the prescription will afford 
relief to the patient from an ailment. Not over one pint of 
spirituous liquor to be prescribed for any person internally within 
ten days, and no prescription to be filled more than once. Pre- 
scriptions to be endorsed “cancelled” as soon as filled, and rec- 
ords to be kept by both physician and pharmacist. 

Sec. 8. Prescription Forms. Prescriptions to be on forms 
prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with stubs 
containing copies of prescriptions furnished at cost. Books with 
stubs filled out to be returned to the Commissioner, with un- 
used or defaced blanks. 

Sec. 9. Revocation of Permits. Commissioner to summon 
persons holding permits to a hearing in case of complaint under 
oath charging violation of the bill, or of any state liquor law, 
or in case he has reason to believe such violation has occurred; 
and upon establishment of such violation wilfully to revoke the 
permit, no further permit to be granted to such person within 


112 SELECTED ARTICLES 


one year thereafter. Action of Commissioner to be subject to 
court review. 

Sec. 10. Record of Sales, Etc. Commissioner to prescribe 
form of record to be filled out and report to be filed by persons 
manufacturing, purchasing for sale, selling or transporting liq- 
uor, such record and report to state the amount and kind of 
liquor, the name and addresses of persons connected with the 
transaction, and the time and place. 

Sec. 11. Records of Manufacturers and Druggists.  Rec- 
ords kept by manufacturers and druggists to contain copies of 
permits to purchase, for each sale made. Manufacturers and 
wholesale druggists not to sell except at wholesale, and only 
to persons who have permits to purchase in such quantities. 

Sec. 12. Labels of Containers. Manufacturers to attach to 
all liquor containers a label stating manufacturer's name, kind 
and quantity of liquor, date of manufacture and copy of manu- 
facturing permit, which label is not to be removed by the 
wholesaler. Wholesalers to attach to all liquor packages sold 
by them a label stating kind of liquor, manufacturer’s name, 
date of sale and name of purchaser, which label is not to be 
removed until liquor is used. 

Sec. 13. Records, Etc., of Carriers. Carriers transporting 
liquor to secure permit and record liquor received for shipment, 
and to deliver only to persons presenting verified copy of permit 
to purchase. Copy of permit to be made part of carrier’s 
permanent record. Agents of carriers authorized to administer 
oaths to consignees, who must be identified if not personally 
known to the agent; name and address of person identifying 
to be included in record. 

Sec. 14. Deceiving Carrier, Receiving Without Label. No 
person to offer liquor for shipment without notifying carrier 
of nature and character of shipment. Liquors not to be trans- 
ported by carriers nor received from them unless package is 
labeled to show name and address of consignor and consignee, 
kind and quantity of liquor, number of permit and address of 
person using it. . 

Sec. 15. False Statements on Packages. Consignee not to 
receive, and consignor or carrier not to deliver, liquor packages 
on which appear statements which he knows to be false. 

Sec. 16. Switching Names or Fraudulent Consignees. No 
person to give a carrier an order for delivery of liquor, with 
intent to enable any person other than a bona fide consignee 
to obtain it. 

Sec. 17. Advertisements. Advertising of liquors by means 
or method prohibited, except that manufacturers and wholesale 
druggists may furnish price lists to persons permitted to sell 
liquor. 


PROHIBITION 113 


Sec. 18. Formulae, Tablets, Compounds to Make Beverage 
Liquor. Advertising, manufacture, sale, etc., of preparations or 
formulae for use in unlawful manufacture of intoxicating liquor 
prohibited. 

Sec. 19. Soliciting Orders. To solicit or receive from an- 
other an order for liquor or give information of how it may 
be obtained in violation of the bill. 

Sec. 20. Civil Damage Action Against Dealer. Persons in- 
jured by intoxicated persons to have right of action against any 
person contributing to such intoxication by selling liquor or 
assisting in procuring it. This right to survive in case of death 
of either party. 

Sec. 21. Nuisances. Places where intoxicating liquor manu- 
factured, sold, etc., in violation of this title declared a common 
nuisance, with penalty on persons maintaining such nuisances; 
fines and costs to be a lien on the premises, if the owner has 
knowledge or reason to believe his property is being so used. 

Sec. 22. Abatement of Nuisances. Attorney General or dis- 
trict attorneys or state prosecuting attorneys or Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue or his subordinates authorized to prosecute 
suits for abatement of such nuisances, in any court of equity. 
Temporary injunctions may be issued by the court, or judge 
in vacation, restraining removal of liquors, etc., as well as con- 
tinuance of the nuisance. No bond to be required in instituting 
the proceedings. Finding of actual violation of law not neces- 
sary, if material allegations of petition are true. Court may 
order abandonment of the building, etc., for one year, or may 
permit owner, etc., to resume control upon giving bond that no 
liquor will thereafter be manufactured, sold, etc., on the premises. 

Sec. 23. Fee of Officers for Selling. Officers entitled to 
same fee for removal and sale of property under the bill as 
sheriff of the county for selling property on execution, besides 
a reasonable sum for closing premises and keeping them closed. 
Violation of this title on leased premises to work forfeiture 
of lease, at option of lessor. 

Sec. 24. Contempt Proceedings. Violation of injunctions 
punishable by fine of not over $1,000 and imprisonment from 
30 days to one year; court to have power to enforce injunctions. 

Sec. 25. Searches and Setzures—Property Rights in Liquor. 
Possession of liquor or property designed for manufacture of 
liquor contrary to this title prohibited; no property rights to 
exist in such liquor or property. Search warrants to issue as 
provided in Title XI of the Espionage Act (40 Stat. 228-230), 
and property seized to be subject to disposition as the court 
may order. Liquor and property designed for unlawful manu- 
facture of liquor to be destroyed. Private dwellings not 
to be searched unless used for unlawful sale of liquor, or used 
in part for business purposes. Rooms used exclusively for 


114 SELECTEDPARTIGEES 


residence purposes in hotels and boarding houses are considered 
private dwellings. 

Sec. 26. Seizure of Vehicles. Vehicles discovered transport- 
ing liquors contrary to law to be seized by the officer discover: 
ing them, and the person in charge arrested and proceeded 
against. Vehicles to be returned to owner upon sufficient bond. 
Liquor to be destroyed on conviction, and vehicles sold and 
proceeds paid into the treasury, except fee for seizure and 
expenses and bona fide liens, unless the owner can show ig- 
norance of the purpose for which the vehicle was used. Un- 
claimed vehicles to be advertised for two weeks before sale. 

Sec. 27. Disposition of Seized Liquors. Seized liquors, in- 
stead of being destroyed, may, by order of the court, be de- 
livered to any government agency for medicinal, mechanical or 
scientific uses, or may be sold to persons having a permit to 
purchase. 

Sec. 28. Powers of Officers. Revenue and other officers 
charged with enforcing criminal laws to have same power for 
enforcing this bill as for enforcing any Federal law concerning 
manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquor. 

Sec. 29. Penalties. Various penalties prescribed for dif- 
ferent violations of this title, with distinctions between first and 
subsequent offenses. Penalties do not apply to persons who 
make non-intoxicating cider and wine for their own use in 
home. 

Sec. 30. No Person Excused From Testifying. No person 
to be excused from testifying on ground that his evidence would 
tend to incriminate him; no natural person to be prosecuted on 
account of testimony given, except for perjury. 

Sec. 31. Venue. Sale and delivery of liquor delivered by 
carriers to be deemed to be made in county or district where 
sale or delivery was made, or through which shipment was made; 
and prosecution may be had in any such county or district. 

Sec. 32. Affidavits and Indictments. Separate offenses may 
be united in separate counts and tried at one trial. Name of 
purchaser or negative averments not required in indictment, etc., 
but allegation that act was prohibited and unlawful sufficient. 

Sec. 33. Possession of Liquor. Possession of liquor after 
February 1, 1920, by persons not legally permitted, to be prima 
facie evidence of intent to violate this title. Persons permitted 
to have liquor within ten days after amendment becomes opera- 
tive state to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue the kind and 
amount of liquor in their possession. Possession of liquor in 
private dwellings not to be unlawful and not required to be re- 
ported, but such liquors must be used for personal consumption 
of the owner, his family and guests; burden of proof to be 
on possessor to prove that it was lawfully acquired, possessed 
and is non-intoxicating. 


PROHIBITION 115 


Sec. 34. Publicity of Records. Records of manufacturers, 
druggists, physicians and carriers to be subject to inspection 
by Federal and state officers or by designated persons. Copies 
to be competent evidence in any proceeding in which the 
original would be competent. 

Sec. 35. Repeal—Tax on Illegal Sales. Only inconsistent 
provisions of law repealed. Liquor tax stamps not to be issued in 
advance, but on evidence of illegal manufacture or sale double 
the present tax to be assessed, with a penalty of $500 on retail 
dealers and $1,000 on manufacturers; payment of such tax and 
penalty not to give any relief from criminal liability. Com- 
missioner of Internal Revenue, with approval of Secretary of 
the Treasury or Attorney General, authorized to compromise 
suits. 

Sec. 36. Constitutionality. Invalidity of any provision of 
the bill not to invalidate any other provision. 

Sec. 37. Storage of Liquor, Near-Beer, Etc. Storage of 
liquor, manufactured prior to taking effect of the bill, in United 
States bonded warehouses, and transportation after tax paid for 
purposes authorized, not prohibited. Manufacturers of bever- 
ages containing less than one-half of I per cent of alcohol may 
be permitted to develop liquid with a greater alcoholic content, 
upon giving bond to reduce the content below one-half of I 
per cent. Alcohol removed to be subject to the same law as 
other liquors, if saved; if evaporated and not saved to pay no 
tax. Beer, etc., containing less than one-half of I per cent of 
alcohol by volume not included in intoxicating liquor, but sale 
for beverage purposes under such name prohibited; burden of 
proof on seller to show that alcoholic content less than one-half 
of I per cent. 

Sec. 38. Employment of Clerks, Etc. Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue and Attorney General authorized to employ, 
under the Civil Service Act, with preference to persons in 
military or naval service during the recent war, such assistants, 
clerks, etc., as may be necessary for the enforcement of the 
bill, so much money as necessary being authorized to be ap- 
propriated for the purpose. 

Sec. 39. Service of Summons on Owners of Property. Sum- 
mons to be served personally on persons whose property is 
affected in any case but who have not personally violated the 
law, if such persons are to be found within the jurisdiction of 
the court. 


THE ANTI-BEER LAW 


The act supplemental to the National Prohibition 
Act, commonly known as the Anti-Beer law, was 


116 SELECTED PARWICEERS 


approved by President Harding on November 23, 1921. 
The provisions of this law may be summarized as fol- 
lows: 


Sec. 2. Only spirituous and vinous liquors may be pre- 
scribed for medicinal purposes. Vinous liquor prescribed must 
not exceed twenty-four per cent alcohol, and not more than one 
quart of it may be prescribed for the use of any one person 
in any ten day period. Spirituous or vinous liquors prescribed 
must not contain more than one-half pint of alcohol for any 
one person in any ten day period. No physician shall be fur- 
nished with more than one hundred prescription blanks for use 
in any period of ninety days. 

Sec. 3. This law and also the National Prohibition Act 
apply not only to the United States, but to all territory subject 
to its jurisdiction. 

Sec. 4. Persons violating the provisions of this law shall 
be subject to the penalties provided in the National Prohibition 
Act. 

Sec. 5. Liquor laws in force when the National Prohibition 
Act was adopted and not in conflict therewith, shall continue in 
force. 

Sec. 6. It is made unlawful for any United States officer 
to search any private dwelling without a search warrant, under 
penalty of a fine of one thousand dollars, or a year’s imprison- 
ment, or both. Similar penalty is provided for any person who 
falsely represents himself to be an officer of the United States. 


VII. ENFORCEMENT OF NATIONAL 
PROHIBITION 


PROHIBITION ONDER THE  SPOILS°SYSTEM? 


Although President Wilson was personally friendly 
to the [Civil Service] reform, his official action was 
for a long time reactionary. Congress excepted many 
places in the Internal Revenue, Federal Reserve, Trade 
Commission, Agricultural Credits and other branches of 
the service, and the President approved the bills. The 
administration of the law became lax. In his second 
term President Wilson did indeed provide for competi- 
tive examinations of presidential postmasters in vacan- 
cies caused by death, resignation or removal, but these 
embraced only about 10 per cent of the whole and the 
remaining 90 per cent still continued to be political 
spoils. Among the reactionary exceptions from competi- 
tion made by the Democratic Congress (though this was 
without President Wilson’s approval) was the Bureau 
for the Enforcement of the Volstead Act, and this ex- 
ception was most disastrous. It inaugurated an era 
of corruption in this branch of the service unheard of 
even in the worst days of spoils politics. Every im- 
portant appointment was the political booty of some 
congressman, often a spoilsman of the lowest type, and 
hundreds of these appointees (and perhaps also some 
of their congressional backers to whom they owed their 
places) have grown fat on the bribes received from boot- 
leggers and other miscreants engaged in defying the law. 

Under President Harding there was no improvement 
in the situation in regard to the civil service. Politics 


1 By William Dudley Foulke, president of the National Civil Service 
Reform League, Current History. 19: 368-70. December, 1923. 


118 SELECTED ARTICLES 


remained the dominant factor in controlling appoint- 
ments outside the classified lists. Waull Hays, who at- 
tempted to stem the tide of plunder in presidential post- 
masterships, retired and under his successor, Dr. Work, 
the political manipulation of the rule of three established 
by the President has been developed to such an extent 
that it has led to the political reconstruction of these 
important offices, Democrats being replaced by Repub- 
lican politicians. An onslaught by the spoilsmen was 
made last year in other places, for instance, the Customs 
Service and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It 
did not entirely succeed, but in many branches of the 
government the spoils system is still strongly entrenched 
and most disastrous of all in the Prohibition Enforce- 
ment Bureau and in certain places in the service of the 
Department of Justice, where, under Mr. Daugherty, 
himself an advocate of political patronage, the Eighteenth 
Amendment and the Volstead Act have been flouted by 
those whose sworn duty it was to enforce it. [sic] 


ENFORCEMENT BY CRIMINALS 


President Harding’s Administration found the En- 
forcement Bureau filled with Democratic spoilsmen, many 
of them criminals, who have since been indicted and 
some of them convicted, but instead of changing the 
system and making these appointments non-political, the 
same methods were continued. Democratic malefactors 
were turned out and Republican malefactors were put 
in their places as part of the recognized plunder of Re- 
publican congressmen. There never was a time when 
the straight and clean path of merit and duty as marked 
out by the competitive system and carried into effect, 
for instance, by the Department of State, contrasted 
more strongly with the slimy trail of the spoils serpent 
as shown in the infamous corruption in the Prohibition 
Enforcement Bureau under the Volstead Act, which 
made all places in its field service the loot of senators 
and representatives. Among these employees indict- 


PROHIBITION 119 


ments and convictions have constantly followed each 
other for months and years in dreary succession, until 
President Harding himself declared that the violations of 
the Volstead law had become a national scandal. Great 
fleets of rum runners and innumerable automobiles on 
the Canadian border import vast quantities of liquor 
every day, and so greatly have our people become dis- 
gusted by the orgy of law-breaking which this corrup- 
tion has stimulated that vast numbers who supported the 
bill when it passed are now seeking its repeal or radical 
modification. 

These scandals can be largely traced to the conduct 
of the officers and representatives of the Anti-Saloon 
League in thus letting spoilsmen in Congress have all 
the plunder they demanded without any remonstrance. 
The secretary of the Anti-Saloon League wrote me on 
December 18, 1922: 


Many Congressmen who are friends of prohibition, and 
many others who had influence with Congressmen, took the 
view that a Civil Service provision would have eliminated a 
number of old internal revenue officers who, they believed, 
would make better enforcement officers because of their experi- 
ence in dealing with the liquor crowd. Most, and probably all, 
of the Anti-Saloon League people did not agree with that view- 
point, but it would have been useless to have opposed it at 
that time, and for that reason you did the Anti-Saloon League 
an injustice by giving the impression that the officers of the 
League were opposed to a Civil Service provision. 


It was not true that civil service provision would 
have eliminated old internal revenue officers who would 
make better enforcement officers because of their ex- 
perience in dealing with the “liquor crowd.” No civil 
service rules on this subject had been devised at all and 
there is no reason whatever to believe that the Civil 
Service Commission would not have given credit in 
their rating for the successful experience of these offi- 
cers. The claim was fictitious and was urged to secure 
patronage for these congressmen. When the secretary 
of the Anti-Saloon League says “the Anti-Saloon League 


120 SELECTEDVARTICLES 


people did not agree with that viewpoint,” what does 
that mean? It means that the league knew that thus 
consigning the appointments to Congressional patronage 
was wrong, yet they actively supported a bill with this 
immoral provision and acquiesced in the proviso that 
these places should be the spoils of politicians. I do not 
believe that their opposition would have jeopardized the 
bill. Congressmen might have said so, but it was not 
true. Nobody is more cowardly than the senator or 
representative intent upon getting patronage. He may 
roar loudly and thunder at first; but in the end he will 
do what he thinks his constituents want, and the league 
says the vast majority of the people wanted the Volstead 
Act. The bill would have been passed by these same 
congressmen without this spoils clause, if they had had 
no other alternative. A little courage and insistence on 
principle might well have secured its omission. The 
time-serving representatives of the league did not have 
either of these qualities, but let the spoils clause go 
through without remonstrance, which even if ineffectual, 
would have vindicated what they now say were their con- 
victions. They went on and urged the passage of the 
bill with this provision in it and permitted these re- 
calcitrant congressmen to be paid for their votes by 
putting in their hands the patronage of these extremely 
lucrative offices, which have now become the more lucra- 
tive by bribery in condoning violations of the law. 


ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE’S FAILURE 


The representatives of the league who counseled this 
course and became parties to it prostituted the trust 
confided to them by the churches and by the great mass 
of prohibitionists throughout the country whom they 
claim to represent. The best thing now for the league 
would be to repudiate the unfaithful servants who took 
part in this inquiry and, having thus plucked the beam 
out of its own eye, to insist that every place-holder in 


PROHIBITION 121 


the Enforcement Bureau from top to bottom, including 
the state directors, give up their present political tenure 
and be eligible to remain in office only if they can show 
that in open competition with all others in tests requir- 
ing not only knowledge, but character and a clean record, 
they are the best qualified. 

The present proposal of the Anti-Saloon League, 
made by its executive committee at its recent meeting 
at Westerville, Ohio (which is indeed a tardy confes- 
sion of the wrong it committed when it helped to keep 
these agents out of the civil service), would fail utterly 
to accomplish any improvement. They say that “Fed- 
eral prohibition agents should be placed under civil ser- 
vice and retained in office not because of political quali- 
fications but because of fitness for the task.” When did 
they find this out? When did the new light dawn upon 
them that they made a mistake in letting the politicians 
have the spoils? The bill which at the last meeting of 
the National Civil Service Reform League Mr. Wheeler 
said the Anti-Saloon League was sponsoring (Senate 
bill 3247), provides that all the miscreants introduced 
into this service by congressional spoilsmen and still in 
office, should be transferred to the classified service and 
“the incumbents continue as of their present rates and 
grades of compensation without further examination.” 
If, as the advocates of the spoils system claim, it would 
be harder to get men out of the classified service than 
out of the unclassified service, this would only perpetu- 
ate the evils that now exist; these lawbreakers would 
become more permanent in their places than they are 
today. But even by including places in the classified 
service this bill does not go half way as a professed 
measure of reform. All positions of executive officers 
who have immediate direction of the enforcement of 
the act and of persons authorized to issue permits, in- 
cluding those of the executive officers employed under 
the Commissioner and the directors, are still to be kept 


122 SELECTED ARTICLES 


as spoils. But it is in these very places that the greatest 
corruption exists today. That would remain, and it 
would infect the whole body. The only remedy is a 
complete reorganization with civil service tests of fit- 
ness to be applied to all, to the highest as well as to 
the lowest, and to those now in the service as well as 
to those who may seek admission hereafter. 


OBSTACLES TO; ENFORCING THE VOUSTEADB 
NOEL 


Effective enforcement of prohibition throughout the 
country hinges on the question whether the right kind 
of officers under the right kind of control are to be 
responsible for administering the Volstead Act or whether 
the present reign of corruption is to be permitted to 
continue. Unfortunately, when the Volstead Act was 
referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the section 
relating to the civil service was amended and then re- 
submitted to the House in the following form, the amend- 
ment being shown in the words in italics: 

Section 38—The Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the 
Attorney General of the United States are hereby respectively 
authorized to appoint and employ such assistants, experts, 
clerks and other employes in the District of Columbia or else- 
where, and to purchase such supplies and equipment as they may 
deem necessary for the enforcement of the provisions of this 
act, but such assistants, experts, clerks and other employes, 
except such executive officers as may be appointed by the Com- 
missioner or the Attorney General to have immediate direction 
of the enforcement of this act, and persons authorized to issue 
permits, and agents and inspectors in the field service, shall be 


appointed under the rules and regulations prescribed by the 
Civil Service act. 


These amendments left the clerical and other un- 
important positions under the civil service law, but ex- 
empted from its operation all the administrative officers 


1 By Imogen, B. Oakley, chairman of the Civil Service Division, 
General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Current History. 19: 371-4. 
December, 1913. 


PROHIBITION 123 


upon whose zeal, ability and integrity the ultimate suc- 
cess of the act must depend. The President vetoed the 
act, but it was passed over his veto by a decisive ma- 
jority. Public opinion gave it loyal support and its first 
successes disarmed criticism. ‘There is no need to re- 
peat once more the many and varied benefits that fol- 
lowed prohibition. These benefits have been remarkable 
from the standpoint alike of health, of material welfare, 
and of moral and social progress. But amid all this 
prosperity and general improvement has arisen a sinister 
figure, the bootlegger, and with him what is even more 
menacing to public law and order, the politically ap- 
pointed enforcement agent, who is the bootlegger’s pro- 
tector and ally. During the past two years, owing to 
their connivance, wine and whisky have been easily ob- 
tained by those able to pay the price, and “hooch’’ is 
on tap for every man who knows where to look for it. 
Alcoholic wards in the hospitals are once more filling 
up, and the police courts are again busy with “drunks.” 
There is a growing feeling that prohibition agents are 
playing politics. The loyal support given at first to the 
Volstead Act is changing to popular discontent. Men of 
prominence in the community are saying that the law 
has become a farce and that they intend to buy whisky 
when they feel like it. The gilded youth of fashionable 
society publicly boast of the contents of their hip flasks. 

My first authentic information of the immunity which 
a “hooch” vendor may enjoy came from a woman who 
had happened to be in my audience at a college settle- 
ment talk in Philadelphia. Her next door neighbor, she 
said, had a still and was selling gallons of liquor every 
day. “The police know all about it,” she added, “but 
nothing is done to the man. Won’t you try to have the 
place closed up!’ When I repeated the story to the 
chief enforcement agent of Philadelphia and asked what 
he could do, he replied: “I am afraid I cannot do much. 
I am badly handicapped. One-third of my subordinates 
are untrained and incapable. They have no idea how 


124 SELECTED ' ARTICLES 


to make a report and I cannot rely upon any informa- 
tion they bring. Another third, I have reason to believe, 
are former saloonkeepers and bartenders whose object 
is to make the law unpopular and incidentally to fill 
their own pockets. The remaining third are dependable 
men. With only one-third of my force really available 
I cannot do more than one-third of my work. And the 
worst of it is that I am compelled to take every man 
no matter how incapable who is sent by an influential 
politician, and I dare not discharge any man, no matter 
how inefficient, if he has an influential politician behind 
him. I used to be luke-warm over civil service rules, 
but now I am red-hot.” 

The number of employees in the prohibition unit 
who were not under civil service rules on June 30, 1922, 
was twenty-one hundred thirty-two. The number 
of dismissals from this group in the year from June 
30, 1921, to June 30, 1922, was one hundred twenty, 
or approximately 6 per cent of the whole force, and 
the grounds for dismissal, according to the report of 
the Bureau of Internal Revenue, were conduct unbecom- 
ing an officer, extortion, acceptance of bribes, falsifying 
accounts and general inefficiency. This 6 per cent may 
with fairness be doubled to include the incompetent and 
corrupt officials who were able to retain their positions 
through the same political influence by which they had 
obtained them. Twelve per cent it may be claimed, is 
not an excessive proportion to go astray, but it is 
enough to bring discredit on the cause of prohibition and 
to give aid and comfort to its enemies. 

The McConnell case, which has so lately stirred 
Pennsylvania to its depths, is a conspicuous example 
of the conditions which tend to nullify the law. William 
McConnell was made chief enforcement officer for Penn- 
sylvania through the influence of the late Senator Pen- 
rose. His actions soon awakened the suspicions of 
T. Henry Walnut, an astute and conscientious Assistant 
District Attorney, who did some quiet detective work, 


PROHIBITION 125 


and in due season was able to inform the Department 
of Justice in Washington that he had in his hands the 
proofs of a conspiracy to defraud the government and 
was prepared to lay them before the Grand Jury. The 
department counseled him to wait. At the next session 
of the Grand Jury Mr. Walnut again announced his 
readiness to proceed, and was again advised to wait. 
In his third letter to the Attorney General Mr. Walnut 
said that any further delay would be prejudicial to the 
case, and that he intended to lay his evidence before 
the Grand Jury at once and ask for an indictment against 
McConnell and forty-eight fellow-conspirators. The re- 
ply from Attorney General Daugherty was a request for 
Mr. Walnut’s resignation. Popular indignation in Phila- 
delphia rose to fever heat. A duly appointed committee 
made a formal demand upon Attorney General Daugh- 
erty for the reasons for Mr. Walnut’s forced resigna- 
tion. The official reply was that Mr. Walnut was an 
able and conscientious officer against whom there was 
no complaint, but that he had been “in office long 
enough,” and that the case was closed. 

Six months later the District Attorney, using the 
material that Mr. Walnut had collected, secured an in- 
dictment against McConnell and his forty-eight fellow- 
conspirators, and a year after Mr. Walnut’s dismissal 
the case was brought to trial. The trial was halted by 
a charge brought against the foreman of the jury of 
having accepted a bribe. A new jury was selected and 
three of the conspirators, becoming frightened, pleaded 
guilty and threw themselves on the mercy of the court. 
The attorneys for the government then arose and in- 
formed the judge that fifty-six of the sixty pieces of 
documentary evidence upon which they relied for con- 
viction had been “lost.” The judge directed the jury 
to acquit the defendants; those who had pleaded guilty 
were instructed now to change their plea, and McCon- 
nell and the forty-eight conspirators walked out of the 
court room technically innocent men. 


126 SELECTED ARTICLES 


McConnell himself remained unperturbed during all 
these proceedings. He had such confidence in the po- 
litical power behind him that in the interval between 
his indictment and trial he announced himself a candi- 
date for the next legislature. The Philadelphia papers 
called the McConnell acquittal a national scandal and 
the most sinister event in the political history of the 
state, and they all united in demanding that the whole 
prohibition service be taken out of politics. 

There is only one way in which the prohibition ques- 
tion can be removed from the influence of party politics, 
and that is to place the entire prohibition service under 
the protection of the Federal civil service act. Promptly 
on the passage of the Volstead Act over the President’s 
veto, the National Civil Service Reform League pre- 
pared a bill to nullify the exemption clause and replace 
enforcement officers in the classified service, and with 
the cooperation of Senator Sterling, chairman of the 
Senate Committee on Retrenchment and Civil Service 
Reform, and Representative Tinkham in the House, it 
was brought before both houses of Congress. It re- 
ceived the endorsement of the General Federation of 
Women’s Clubs and the National League of Women 
Voters, but when the 67th Congress finally adjourned it 
had not been reported out of committee. The entire boot- 
legging industry of the country lined up against the bill, 
but its most formidable opponent was the Anti-Saloon 
League. Mr. Wayne B. Wheeler, counsel for the league, 
objected to placing enforcement agents in the classified 
service for three specific reasons: 

(1) It is an absolute necessity that enforcement 
agents be prohibitionists by conviction and in practice, 
and under the impersonal civil service law there can be 
no guarantee they will meet this requirement. 

(2) Agents who have to do with search and seizure 
are obliged under the civil service law to have a certain 
knowledge of law and to show two years’ experience, 


PROHIBITION 127 


either of which requirements might prevent the appoint- 
ment of a man otherwise specially fitted for the work. 

(3) It is vitally necessary that agents who show 
themselves inefficient or dishonest, or who ally them- 
selves with bootleggers, should be instantly dismissed, 
and under the civil service law it is extremely difficult, 
if not impossible, to get rid of incapable or corrupt em- 
ployees. 

The advocates of the Sterling-Tinkham bill have an 
answer for each of these objections: 

(1) Candidates for office in the classified service 
are required to prove their fitness for the office desired, 
and the most important elements of fitness are belief 
in the law to be administered and the intention to obey 
it. These might well be made requirements for an ex- 
amination for these positions. Moreover, each candi- 
date is required to give the names of five well-known 
and respected citizens who will certify the candidate is 
and always has been, to the best of their knowledge 
and belief, a reputable and law-abiding man, and with 
this requirement it is highly improbable that any former 
saloon keeper, ex-criminal or any man known to be 
intemperate in his habits could qualify. The successful 
administration of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act is an 
irrefutable proof of the ability of the civil service sys- 
tem to provide enforcement officers of special training 
and integrity who are enforcing the law with a minimum 
of difficulty and scandal. 

(2) It must be remembered that since prohibition 
enforcement agents are exempt from the civil service 
law the United States Civil Service Commission has 
made no rulings concerning them. Hence what it might 
or might not rule should the Sterling-Tinkham bill be- 
come a law can only be a matter of conjecture. Officers 
having to do with search and seizure in other units of 
the Internal Revenue Department are required to have 
a certain knowledge of law, and considering the illegalities 


128 SELECTED ARTICLES 


and absurdities into which the prohibition search and 
seizure officers have been betrayed from their lack of 
knowledge of law, this would seem to be a very neces- 
sary requirement. No candidate for any position in 
any unit of the Internal Revenue Department, however, 
is obliged to show more than one year’s experience. 
Mr. Wheeler’s assumption that a prohibition agent 
would be obliged under the Civil Service law to show 
two years’ experience is therefore based neither upon 
logic nor fact. 

(3) The fundamental rule for the whole classified 
service is that any inefficient or otherwise unsatisfactory 
employee may be dismissed at once and without appeal. 
The chief of any government office or bureau is distinctly 
authorized to suspend upon the spot for ninety days any 
one of his subordinates and then give in writing the 
reasons for dismissal, and an opportunity to answer them, 
but there is no trial and the removal may be made at the 
pleasure of the chief. In point of fact, it is only in the 
classified service that an inefficient or untrustworthy 
employee may be promptly dismissed, for under the 
system of political patronage no one can be discharged 
so long as he can use political influence. 

Although an opponent of the Sterling-Tinkham bill, 
Mr. Wheeler has publicly admitted the lamentable results 
of the political control of the prohibition unit, In a 
recent magazine article he says: “Political influence has 
been a great barrier to efficient enforcement. Many of- 
ficers and agents in the Law Enforcement Department 
were appointed through political influence quite apart 
from any interest in prohibition. The incoming admin- 
istration can increase the efficiency of the department 

‘ by removing the drones and derelicts who 
were put there by political influence.” 

No one, not even the most ardent supporter of the 
merit system, claims that to put enforcement officers 
under civil service rules will make them all incorruptible 
saints, nor does any one believe that the non-political 


PROHIBITION 129 


enforcement of the Volstead Act will at once turn every 
citizen of the country into a law-abiding prohibitionist. 
If, by divorcing it from politics, the Volstead Act can 
be made genuinely effective, in a few generations boot- 
legging and drinking will be as much under the social 
ban as theft and murder. Whisky will undoubtedly con- 
tinue to be sold in the haunts of criminals, and boot- 
leggers will ply a precarious trade in evil places, but no 
man in decent society will vaunt his defiance of the law, 
nor will the gilded youth boast of the contents of their 
hip flasks. It will have ceased to be respectable. 


THE POWER OF MONEY + 


The ease and quickness with which fortunes could be 
made accounted for persistent succumbing of state di- 
rectors and their offices to temptation. 

The New York and the Pennsylvania offices have 
changed control six times in the past three and a half 
years. Each has had one director and numerous subor- 
dinates indicted for fraud in connection with permits. 

Coupled with the temptation of extraordinary sums 
of money there were political influences of importance. 
The value of the office of the state director of prohibition 
as a political asset was soon demonstrated. It could con- 
trol numerous highly desirable appointments, could af- 
ford protection to favored persons and provide permits 
in payment of political debts, and, what was still more 
important, could collect unlimited sums of money for 
campaign purposes. 

Control of the office was eagerly sought by political 
leaders. The Republican leaders were alive to those con- 
siderations, and their original selections both in New 
York and Philadelphia were of men prominent in political 
life,—Judge Harte and Senator McConnell. Neither one 
lasted more than a few months and both were indicted 


1 By T. Henry Walnut. Annals of the American Academy. 109: 205-6. 
September, 1923. 


130 SELEGUED FARTIGERES 


within a year from the date of their appointment for the 
fraudulent issue of permits, and in both cases there was 
a persistent rumor that the money collected on the per- 
mits was intended in part at least to be applied to im- 
portant political purposes, one of which in Pennsylvania 
was the accumulation of a fund of great size for the elec- 
tion of a governor in the following year. 

However true the specific rumors may have been as to 
the political reasons involved, it is undoubted that enor- 
mous quantities of liquor were withdrawn from the dis- 
tilleries upon fraudulent permits and that enormous sums 
of money were paid for the permits. The permits so 
issued by the Pennsylvania office in a period of sixty 
days called for seven hundred thousand gallons of whisky 
and alcohol. The corruption fund arising from these 
papers must have run close to $4,000,000, which price 
was added to the cost of the liquor that was withdrawn 
and bootlegged. 

The power of money in such amounts to interfere 
with the customary processes of justice is a matter of 
grave concern. Moreover, when an investigation was 
made in 1921 into the operations of the prohibition office 
and of the liquor dealers who operated through it, the 
number of persons directly involved was disturbing and 
the ramifications of the business reached into all quar- 
ters of the state. In the foreground of the picture were 
five or six dealers, who within a year had lifted themselves 
from very moderate circumstances to a position of wealth. 
They had purchased one distillery after another which 
they proceeded to clean out on fraudulent permits. Back 
of them were smaller dealers, wholesale and retail, and a 
vast number of drivers and general aids and assistants, 
and finally the purchasers themselves, who were a trifle 
proud of their ability to buy liquor. 

There were prohibition officials directly involved and 
a procession of names of men occupying the most respon- 
sible positions in the state and nation, some of whom 


PROHIBITION 131 


were so closely connected as to be just on the edge of 
prosecution. 


PROF BULIO NUN > HD Ey © Ui bt 


Commissioner Haynes of the Prohibition Enforcement 
Bureau, who used so willingly the clause in the Volstead 
Act making political plunder of the field service of his 
unit—who turned out with such alacrity the Democratic 
scoundrels he found in office and appointed on the recom- 
mendations of Republican congressmen and politicians an 
equal number of Republican scoundrels in their places— 
men who have made his service a by-word of corruption 
and inefficiency—this man now publishes what he would 
have us believe is a fair account of the conduct of the 
prohibition enforcement service. For a long time his 
policy had been one of concealment and of insisting that 
all was going well. I heard Mr. Haynes in August, 1922, 
in a speech at a Quaker reunion in my own town of Rich- 
mond, declare that his employees were “as high-type a 
force as was found in the government service,” and con- 
demn as “wet” propaganda all disparagement of their 
work. 

On November 15, 1922, in testifying before the house 
committee on appropriations, he said, ‘““We feel much grat- 
ified at the present functioning of our machinery.” Even 
as late as last June, Mr. Haynes declared in his report that 
his force was acting at a maximum efficiency under a 
limited appropriation! Instead of warning the friends of 
law and order to be on their guard, the effect of this was 
to lull them into false security. The unwarranted claims 
of satisfactory enforcement aided the violators of the law 
to get beyond control. The passing back and forth of 
the rum-running fleets which once moved under cover, 
tells the story. 


1 By William Dudley Foulke. National Municipal Review. 13: 10-14. 
January, 1924. Trt te 


132 SELECTEDVARTICLES 


On October 4, 1922, the commissioner issued an official 
statement that the office of the prohibition officer in New 
York state was in excellent condition though that office 
was then being investigated by a Federal grand jury 
which reported on October 27 that it had been conducted 
in a disgraceful manner, and six of the enforcement of- 
ficers and twenty-seven of their dependents were in- 
dicted for conspiracy for violating the Volstead Act. The 
grand jury say in their report: 


Apparently the agents selected for active work of suppres- 
sing illegal traffic in whiskey have been chosen principally for 
political reasons, when it was necessary to select men for this 
work who are worthy of confidence and of such stable char- 
acter that they would not yield to the temptations to which it 
was well understood they would be subjected. 

These appointees, being exempt from the civil service laws, 
were appointed and removed without the restrictions which 
those laws impose, and consequently the office seems to have 
been made the dumping ground for influential politicians who 
secured appointments for their henchmen without proper regard 
for the qualifications of those chosen. 


A little later, District Attorney Hayward, quoted in 
the New York Tribune of December 30, 1922, said that 
the first knowledge in his office of a great conspiracy 
came a few weeks previously from a volunteer witness, 
though the office of the New York prohibition director 
had most of the facts as early as June and did not see 
fit to turn them over for prosecution. A chronology of 
the notorious violation of the laws disclosed by the news- 
papers presents an appalling array of crimes. 

The commissioner has at last awakened from so much 
of his pipe dream as led him to tell us, and perhaps to 
believe himself, that all was going well. Concealment 
was no longer possible and it became necessary to confess 
that violations of the law were widespread and danger- 
ous. But still he insists that this is the fault of others— 
of lax enforcement by state and local officials and of 
general wickedness. That his own force of corrupt spoils- 
men was at the bottom of the lawlessness—this he is still 
unwilling to confess, 


PROHIBITION 133 


In his twenty-first installment of Prohibition Inside 
Out, published in the Times, he thus refers to the dere- 
lictions in his own service: 


Within the enforcement organization we count the cost of 
the names of our men, dishonest, weak men and few in num- 
ber. . . In mercy to the weak I refrain from turning the page 
which would reveal the names of those who are fallen by the 
wayside. . . As the result of temptation in scores of forms and 
unceasingly offered, forty-three officers of the prohibition unit 
have been adjudged guilty by the courts since the beginning 
of the administration. Even so, the force was 99 per cent honest. 


A more outrageously disingenuous and misleading 
statement it would be hard to conceive. Because only 
1 per cent had been actually convicted, therefore 99 per 
cent were honest! Does Mr. Haynes know the percentage 
of convictions in other crimes? The report of the com- 
mittee of the Bar Association at Minneapolis tells us 
that last year in New York two hundred and sixty mur- 
ders were committed and three convictions were ob- 
tained! This was 1.15 per cent of the murders actually 
committed, yet here was a crime where the moral force 
of the community would be in favor of conviction. In 
respect to the liquor law public opinion is often adverse 
and the proportion of violations which escape punishment 
must be very much larger. It is safe to say that the 
crimes committed by prohibition agents excede by many 
times the number of these agents, a single man often 
committing scores of them. In his very next article Mr. 
Haynes says the number of corrupt state officers is large 
and “those who have been caught are doubtless but a 
fraction of those who are guilty,” yet he would have us 
believe that he has caught and punished all the guilty in 
his own service and that 99 per cent of his own subor- 
dinates are enforcing the law! We know from what we 
see daily around us, that immense quantities of liquor are 
illegally sold every day with the connivance of prohibition 
officials. And yet Mr. Haynes says, “Of real corruption 
the per cent stands at about % of 1 per cent.” Mr. 


134 SELECTED ARTICLES 


Haynes, if you believe this, you are deceiving yourself 
and the rest of us can no longer credit what you say. 
You tell us of the forty-three convictions. But you say 
nothing of the “almost numberless cases’ mentioned by 
President Harding in which “immediate dismissal” was 
necessary. Why are you silent on the Rhode Island 
service which had to be reorganized from top to bottom? 
Why do you tell us nothing of the service in New York 
where one director after another, with his chief subor- 
dinates, left the service with the marks of infamy upon 
his brow? Why nothing of Pennsylvania, where subordi- 
nates were actually dismissed by those higher up be- 
cause they tried to enforce the law? Why nothing of 
Montana, Wisconsin and elsewhere where your chief 
officers were faithless to their trust? I appeal from your 
misleading statistics to the common consciousness of the 
country that a great proportion of your service is rotten 
tothe core. 

Of course you have some good men in it, men who 
have resisted enormous temptations, among them your 
roll of martyrs, as you call them, thirty cases you say, 
who have been slain in the prohibition service. The mem- 
ory of these men deserves all honor at the hands of their 
countrymen, though it is a little hard to understand how 
such a case as that of John T. Foley, killed by the acci- 
dental discharge of his own gun, can be regarded as an 
instance of voluntary martyrdom. 

These things continue and grow down to the present 
time. On July 1, 1923, Commissioner Haynes dismissed, 
in New York, eighteen prohibition agents because they 
were “non-producers.” But the new appointments to 
fill their places were filled by the same political methods 
which created this non-production. On the same day dis- 
patches from Chicago brought word that Roscoe C. An- 
derson, prohibition director, and John E. Easley, his 
chief agent, and nine others had been indicted for dis- 
tributing among stockholders $200,000 worth of liquor 
stocks, and the Chicago district attorney then announced 


PROHIBITION 135 


that charges of perjury against half a dozen agents 
would be brought before the next Federal grand jury. 

Leon Ackerman and George Arnold Fugitt, agents 
attached to the District of Columbia force, were held 
under a bribery charge. Ackerman recently declared he 
had been the victim of a “frame-up” by other prohibition 
agents. We need not decide the equities between these 
worthy gentlemen. One way or the other the guilt lay 
with members of this disreputable body. 

In Mr. Haynes’ Prohibition Inside Out we have many 
edifying cases of temptation resisted, of bootleggers skill- 
fully entrapped, of attempted bribery foiled by the efforts 
of the faithful. As the parties are not named, the stories 
cannot be verified or disproved, and we do not hear of 
the cases where the bootleggers succeeded and the brib- 
ery prevailed. He talks, for instance, of the pretence of 
influences in district attorney’s offices and elsewhere, pro- 
tecting violations of the law, not of the real influences 
which for a long time actually prevailed. His articles 
reminded me of a story by Charles O’Conor, the eminent 
lawyer, once engaged in the prosecution of Tweed and 
his fellow conspirators. A member of the New York 
ring once said to him, ‘They are very disagreeable, these 
damned lies that the newspapers publish.” ‘Yes, they 
must be very disagreeable,’ said Mr. O’Conor, “these 
damned lies that the newspapers publish, but I would not 
think that would be what you would find most disagree- 
able. I should think it would be the damned truths the 
newspapers publish which you would find objectionable, 
sir.” So it is not the pretended influences of which Mr. 
Haynes had the best right to complain, but the real in- 
fluences which have prevailed. 

But in spite of his desire to make them as small as 
possible, Mr. Haynes’ account itself shows the enormous 
number of law violations. Take, for instance, the im- 
portations from the Bahamas. He says that in 1918 there 
was only wine of the value of 8,675 pounds sterling and 
spirits of 6,370 pounds, but last year the wine was over 


136 SELEGTEDMARTIGUES 


27,000 pounds and spirits over 100,000 pounds. The 
traffic from St. Pierre, he says, has been enormous, the 
natives becoming rich out of these profits. He tells of the 
traps and vaults for storing liquor, covered with soil, 
whence it is conveyed at night by trucks for shipment in 
cars loaded with vegetables and destined to be lost in 
transit. He tells us of farmers who have not raised a 
hundred dollars’ worth of produce in years who now 
have fine touring cars; he tells of wild parties of rum 
runners in which women participate. He tells us of a 
possible minimum of one million and half gallons of im- 
portations for 1922; of the twenty-nine vessels which 
were seized and forty motor boats. He describes the 
wholesale smuggling at Detroit; the wholesale importa- 
tions from Montreal across the New York border; he 
declares that Canada received many millions in taxes 
from these importations. He describes the highjackers 
who rob and murder the bootleggers—the piracy which 
he says is rampant from the Carribeans to Newfound- 
land as well as in the Great Lakes and Puget Sound and 
Mexico. He talks much of protection of bootleggers by 
officials, but he gives his illustrations from the officials of 
different states and cities and not from his own subord1- 
nates. He seeks to divert us from a contemplation of 
present infamy by golden promises of future perform- 
ances. Conditions may be bad today, but he endeavors 
to inspire faith by predicting the most satisfactory en- 
forcement of prohibition in times to come. But was it 
not St. Paul himself who once defined faith as the “sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen’? Was it not Alexander Pope who said: “Man 
never is but always to be blest’’? 

Unfortunately we have no better means to gauge the 
future than by the past. The prohibition bureau has 
already been in operation over three and a half years. 
Have violations of the law increased or diminished dur- 
ing that time? Mr. Haynes tells us in his articles that 


PROHIBITION 137 


the general decrease in arrests, prosecutions and convic- 
tions for crime, in general, and especially for drunken- 
ness is evidence that the Volstead Act has benefited the 
world. The decrease in prosecutions, he says, shows a 
great gain. 

What, then, shall be said of the report of the Attorney 
General to the President, in regard to the enforcement 
of the Volstead Act itself, which tells us that during the 
forty-one months’ period since that act was passed, each 
year has brought an increase in prosecutions and convic- 
tions; that there have been at least ten thousand more 
convictions this year than last and fifteen thousand more 
than the year before? These figures, he says, not only 
show the rapid increase of prohibition cases but also in- 
dicate a stricter enforcement of the law. A more recent 
report of the Attorney General shows that the increase in 
convictions was even greater than that stated above. 

Now if according to Mr. Haynes, diminished arrests 
and convictions show improvement as to other laws, does 
not an increase in convictions for violations of the Vol- 
stead Act show that conditions in regard to its enforce- 
ment are growing worse? ‘The Attorney General tells 
us that the average of the last fiscal year is more than 
three times that of the first fiscal year. If these things 
mean merely increased vigilance in prosecutions, then 
what becomes of Mr. Haynes’ argument that fewer ar- 
rests, prosecutions and convictions mean fewer crimes? 
Do they mean merely diminished vigilance? His argu- 
ment cannot work both ways. ‘The inevitable inference 
is that violation of the enforcement act are tncreasing 
day by day and month by month and that the failure of 
the bureau to enforce the law under the spoils system ts 
becoming each year more apparent. 

The only possible chance for an amelioration of 
present conditions in the Prohibition Enforcement 
Bureau is to provide that every place under the commis- 
sioner, from the top to the bottom, shall be included in 


138 SELECTED ARTICLES 


the classified service and that examinations shall be held, 
not only for new appoimiments, but in regard to the 
places which are held so largely by men who are now 
violating the law; that the men now holding these places 
be required to compete with other applicants, and that a 
thorough investigation be made by the civil service com- 
mission as to the character and integrity as well as the 
other qualifications of all who apply. 


WET AROUND THE EDGES? 


We have had prohibition four years. And the coun- 
try is still 381% per cent wet, according to the Attorney 
General’s office. Bootleggers and smugglers thrive in 
the United States because politics has made the game 
easy for them. 

The accompanying map is the basis for the above 
statements about non-enforcement of the Volstead Act. 
This map was prepared by Mrs. Mabel Walker Wille- 
brandt, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, 
and the one person in private or public life best qualified 
to express an intelligent opinion on the degree of non- 
enforcement. Mrs. Willebrandt is in charge of all pro- | 
hibition matters in the Attorney General’s Office. The 
blacker the spot on the map, the wetter the state is. Pre- 
pared by Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Assistant At- 
torney General, the map shows the degree of non-enforce- 
ment in each part of the country. The detailed figures of 
non-enforcement are as follows: 


State Per cent State Per cent 
Milabamas Nort uve ee LOM nWelawareyn. dc vanieeee else 75 
AMilabama:) Southio dese 26 MAH Orie. Sols Vanvl nieve 75 
ATION on tet Gainer ae ee COMM GEOr Sia COAST mun mianemen ie go 
INGATISAS Ul Cl ci clMiL Wn Ae le NeA ZO Georeia’ | ititerior mies eas 20 
Calizornianinorth ieee wee roth UAL Ma bel s Co apm eh Ge ah Id pa 5 
Gahtornia, south) Soe BOVAMENLLNTIOTS 1 0/2fe Suman ee ce oe 65 
GOlOraAdOntae neice ten enters U4 1H Ba Cab Eb 0 WinrybaAlp nate i? fe ab eared) 40 
COnnectiCntieest.\ rune SOE O Wa |.) cael Cevon i eRy ann eG IO 


1 By Jack O’Donnell. Collier’s Weekly. 73:5. January 26, 1924. 


139 


PROHIBITION 





140 SELECTED ARTICLES 


State Per cent State Percent 
KK ONSAGae NG erie tals isnt a « s) aN. Carolina, codsti. mares 70 
Kr EG yun ven ears aie. oon oe bse 50... ON. Carolinasanteriona esa 15 
LLOUIStATIATMIOTLN Mec kio's bles 25. North Dakotain see ee 50 
TOOTS TA RN AMESOLICE weeteescle ee, wh 00.) ObiG cea iis eee ee 20 
WE ATG UNe eA ster c's crave ct cholo 4 20' Oklahoma niyn seer eee 10 
Mia LAT eRe Wea y aves aes 78.) Oregon iit oe naue eer 50 
IMASBACHUISEUESIN ae eae o see 976); Pennsylvania y anes ce ees 70 
EEC) ERE by UNL ee Re AL 50°) } Rhoden lslandiien eee 75 
TOE CR Ta Sig) B21 Ue a 50) oa, Carolina wcoastin.s aaesem 
IMASSIESIDODL UNOTLA Ys ssh msle = 20 No Carolinas intenoree ee ee 15 
INVISSISSIN DEY SOUL ns sa vie eee 60,0 hoouth Dakotaliaian meee 10 
IVER SS OTT Mp eos is otis Waals ig stein etek 40 Tennessee 2st. . ss ene 10 
Witt aria guste rte eee cuisines wosieie BO ee uLexas ia ca Vain tra eee 20-40 
IV GTTAGIA4 ve meva tate yolk ue oe TON Utah ee. ee ree 5 
INGE Lain cay ie sei rah Os ave een LS Hii CTEIOnitie,. ave eee an Sareea 60 
New wiampshite 2,000. .e": Gol Vireiniay cin Ce.cet eee 30 
Newiclersey ay acne ask een OO FA VV aS STO ue sda seen 50 
IN Gwe NLexico (iscie een es 20 ee West) Virginia) > 4 vere 30 
Newry ork, ssouthiaancms ae Os WV ISCONSIN ©. panted suk teres 40 
New. York snorth yea OO Nene WV VOmitio ee Gls oat eee eee 10 





The average degree of non-enforcement throughout 
the United States is 38% per cent. 


HOW WET IS VPEN NS Me VAIN Te 


Suffering from “a liquor deluge,” where practically 
every city is “wet as the Atlantic Ocean,” prominent 
among the states of the union as “offering the most ex- 
cellent opportunities for drinking,” a “bootleggers’ Ely- 
sium,” brazen in its defiance of prohibition laws, where 
“there are far more wide-open saloons than ever flour- 
ished in pre-prohibition days’—these are some of the 
characterizations applied to the state whose governor re- 
cently appealed to the President of the United States for 
help in damming the flood of bad liquor. A New York 
newspaper man, inspired by Governor Pinchot’s startling 
revelations, has conducted an investigation in the prin- 
cipal cities, and he presents even more startling results 
in a series of articles in the New York Tribune. He con- 
fines his testimony to what he saw with his own eyes, 


1 Literary Digest. 79: 38-40, 42, 44. November 10, 1923. 


PROHIBITION 141 


and to what he was told by a number of prominent 
Pennsylvanians, chiefly Prohibitionists. Typical of the 
testimony he quotes is the declaration of the Rev. A. J. 
Weisley, pastor of the Green Ridge Presbyterian Church 
of Scranton, that “‘Scranton is the wettest of the wet 
cities,’ and that ‘““New York handles the situation much 
better.” Observers in practically every large city in 
Pennsylvania gave their own localities an equally bad 
reputation. In Pittsburgh, we are told, “there seems to 
be no pretence of obeying the prohibition laws,” and in 
Harrisburg, the Rev. Dr. Robert Bagnell, pastor of the 
Grace Methodist Church, recently “startled a meeting of 
church people by the assertion that the Eighteenth 
Amendment was being flagrantly violated.”’ But in Phila- 
delphia, which the New York investigator visited a few 
days after Governor Pinchot had publicly announced his 
attentions of padlocking the doors of the liquor dispen- 
saries, conditions were the worst. “If Philadelphia is 
not at this moment actually submerged by a liquor del- 
uge,’ reported the investigator, M. Jay Racusin, on 
Matoberi Zi): 

The engulfing torrent, from all appearances, must be pressing 
the Quaker City hard. Considering the ease and freedom with 
which it is possible to obtain intoxicating liquors in this city, 


it can be said, unreservedly, “That’s all there is; there isn’t any 
more.” 


Governor Pinchot said so himself, shortly after his 
visit here some weeks ago, when he hoped to exterminate 
the myriad liquor dispensaries that dotted the city, by 
threatening to padlock their doors. 

“The saloons in Philadelphia,” he said, “have paid no 
attention to the law. They have been selling liquor more 
lawlessly and operating in more open defiance of the 
Federal and state laws than in any other city of the 
commonwealth. There are over thirteen hundred saloons 
in Philadelphia.” 

Investigation reveals that he greatly understates the 
case. There are, in fact, according to police records, 


142 SELECTED ARTICLES 


eight thousand places in the Quaker City where one may 
obtain high-voltage beer and whisky of character. This 
is the figure actually counted by the police, but their chief 
intimates that this scarcely tells the story. There are at 
least eight thousand more rooms and shops of one de- 
scription or another, he says, where intoxicants are being 
sold without the knowledge of the authorities. 

The recent repeal of the Brooks high-license law at 
the instigation of Mir. Pinchot is asserted to have been 
mainly responsible for the amazing multiplication of sa- 
loons over the eight hundred-odd bar-rooms that existed 
before the repeal of this law. 

Perhaps a more impressive picture of the conditions 
can be obtained from the knowledge that in a period of 
eight months preceding September 1 there were 29,134 
arrests here for intoxication, 5,346 other arrests for dis- 
orderly drunkenness, 383 intoxicated chauffeurs taken off 
the streets, and 1,082 persons taken here and there on 
suspicion of bootlegging. 

Only last Saturday night and early this morning more 
than four hundred and forty drunks were taken up by 
the police. It is estimated that at the tempo of the present 
drinking orgy a record of more than one hundred thous- 
and arrests will be established this year for all causes 
revolving about the drinking and selling of liquor. 

The authorities told the writer, he reports, that they 
were so hard-prest for cellroom for their prisoners that 
they had been compelled to release large numbers, simply 
because there was no place to keep them. Furthermore, 
the report runs: 


More than 200 cases are awaiting trial in the county courts, 
while the Federal District Court here has a staggering calendar 
‘of 300 liquor cases to look forward to at this term of court. 

If more details were needed to depict the failure of Prohi- 
bition in Philadelphia to-day it could be said that the demand 
for saloon space has sent likely corners up from their $60 to 
$70 monthly rentals to $200 and $300. The entire local market 
of limes has been bought up by the saloon men for their 
streams of gin rickeys, and the fever to get into the saloon 


PROHIBITION 143 


business has lately been such that one finds drug-stores, grocery- 
stores, garages, stables and dwellings converted into barrooms 
over night. 

Window after window offers elaborate displays of liquor 
flasks and cocktail shakers, while prizes of similar articles are 
offered at social functions and sporting events. 

One can cap the climax of his investigation by strolling along 
the principal streets in the center of the city and observing the 
doorsteps and curbs littered with helpless inebriates. The med- 
ical care of the tremendous number of these drunks taken into 
custody has made such demands upon the police surgeons in- 
trusted with this work that three of them were compelled to 
resign because they were unable to weather the strain. 

Certain citizens here, while looking eagerly for some method 
to deal with the problem, looked with humor upon the padlock- 
threat attack launched by the Governor on October 2. “When 
the band passed, it was all over,’ was the way one of them 
exprest the net result of Mr. Pinchot’s expedition. ‘The rivers 
of beer and liquor found by the Governor are still bubbling in 
his wake. Business is going on as usual.” 

It is hardly possible to offer any more striking details of the 
situation than those observed by the Governor himself. The 
beer sold throughout the city is frequently dosed with ether and 
is working havoc among drinkers. The whisky is rarely of good 
quality, and is usually alcohol diluted with water and with a 
mere flavoring of genuine whisky. “Mustika,’ a fiery Greek 
concoction, has become extremely popular in this city and is 
sending many to the hospitals. 

The service in the barrooms is far ahead of that offered 
even in other cities. It used to be the custom—for safety reasons 
—for bartenders to sneak the liquor into the hand of the patron 
and request the patron to take it at a gulp. This haste, how- 
ever, has now universally given way to a leisurely procedure. 
Mixed drinks have come into fashion again, and the high-ball 
and cocktail glasses are placed in rows upon the polished bars 
and the drinks mixed before the eyes of the customers. 


To attract attention to the quality of their goods, re- 
ports the Tribune investigator, some of the “barkeeps’’ 
actually call attention to the fact that William Penn was 
a brewer and has left with them the formula of his “most 
excellent beer.”’ Others assert by placards on their walls 
that their beer has been “lagered in the lager (aging) 
caves recently discovered along the banks of the Schuyl- 
kill.’ The report continues: 


144 SELECTED ARTICLES 


No attention whatever has apparently been paid to Governor 
Pinchot’s peremptory notice to 1,300 of the places that they must 
close at once or face injunction proceedings. 

The most striking beer- and liquor-drinking sights are to be 
seen on Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth 
and Thirteenth Streets in the down-town section, and on Wal- 
nut, Chestnut, Sansom, Arch, Race, Vine and Callowhill Streets ; 
Ridge Avenue, the Kensington district and the West Philadelphia 
section. 

On Twelfth Street one saloon was observed to be jammed to 
the doors, with the drinkers elbowing their way to the bar 
through four lines of men. Outside this place numerous men 
reeled about in drunken stupors. In a saloon one block away 
girls were observed drinking at the rail with crowds of men 
customers. In two short blocks here 100 drunken men were 
counted on one side of the street. In a place in Arch Street 
three bartenders and seven waiters were kept on the jump serv- 
ing scores of eager patrons. 

In another saloon in Twelfth Street more than 120 men 
were counted drinking beer and whisky at or near the bar. 
Among these were about fifty Navy men. There were five 
bartenders here. In another place six bartenders had their 
hands full attending to the demands for drinks. 

There was a flourishing little bar near the historic old Betsy 
Ross House, and another two blocks away. 

“Give me a red one,” or “a high white one,” or “punch it 
with lemon and fixings,’ you order in another place. Inva 
place on Columbia Avenue, drinks are mixed on the tables be- 
fore one, just as in pre-Volstead days. 

Many of these places have been turned into lively dance- 
chambers, with the beer and alcoholic beverages flowing like 
water. 

And so one could go on indefinitely. The present-day at- 
tempts made to deal with it by the various state, City and Fed- 
eral agencies are feeble and ineffective to say the least. 

Federal Judge J. Whitaker Thompson complains that, in his 
opinion, the Federal courts should not assume the sole burden of 
trying the liquor cases, but that it should be shared by the State 
courts. Apparently staggered by the huge calendar of these 
cases, Judge Thompson says, “this court can’t give any more 
time than it is now giving to the handling of Prohibition cases. 
We can’t try more than fifteen or twenty cases a week. 

“On the surface,” Judge Thompson added, “it certainly looks 
as if all the injunction suits were intended for the Federal courts. 
I want it distinctly understood that this court, with but three 
judges, and its calendars cluttered with many kinds of lawsuits, 
could not possibly hear a flood of these injunction suits, and, 
while we are willing to do our part in the enforcement of this 


PROHIBITION - 145 


law, the State courts should also do their share. Does the State 
of Pennsylvania expect the Federal judges to do all the work, or 
are its judges going to help out?” 

The courts thus have been brought to a virtual impasse, so 
that the chances seem small of a considerable number of 1,300 
saloons being legally proceeded against and a decision rendered 
within a reasonable time. The only padlocks on the barroom 
doors are those placed there nightly by the owners themselves. 

Directory of Public Safety Cortelyou admits that drunken- 
ness is encountered generally in the streets of the city. Super- 
intendent of Police Mills adds that police supervision of the 
saloons is virtually impossible, because, he argues, 8,000 “blind- 
tigers” have blossomed into being throughout the city, 
where, before the passage of the Pinchot State enforcement act, 
there were only 1,400 licensed taverns. 

In addition, it is argued, any efforts the police might put 
forth to clamp down the lid are defeated by the action of the 
local municipal and county courts in throwing the cases out 
wholesale. The arrests are continuing, however, it is said, under 
the Pinchot Dry act, but little appreciable results are looked for. 

Several church bodies are uniting for action on their own 
account. How they hope to accomplish what the local govern- 
mental agencies admit they have been unable to do is hard to 
see. As for the attitude of Mayor Moore, the liquor question 
is probably the sole subject upon which he rarely expresses him- 
self, 

Above it all remains the one striking fact—Philadelphia is 
soaking wet and, from all appearances, will continue to be so 
for a long time to come, unless some power not now evident 
enters upon the situation with a more effective stick than has 
yet been brought to bear upon it. 


As with Philadelphia, so, reports Mr. Racusin, it was 
with the other cities, large and small, of Pennsylvania. 
He visited Scranton, where, he says: 


The vaccine of Prohibition seems to have had not the 
slightest effect. Scrantonians have as much opportunity to-day 
for drinking spirituous liquors as they had in the pre-Volstead 
days, when its 135,000 citizens had at their disposal the faucets 
of 4oo thriving saloons. 

This striking fact becomes evident at once to the most su- 
perficial observer. The city’s officials and prominent citizens 
admit it. John Durkan, the Mayor, says he is “up against it.” 
The State authorities appear to bestir themselves little beyond 
grabbing a liquor vender once in a while and throwing him 
to the Federal courts, where the Judge says “most of the cases 
will rest and go to sleep.” 


146 SELECTED WARUIGLES 


There are blind-tigers, speak-easies and old-time saloons 
a-plenty. The writer visited a score of them in the busiest 
streets of the city. Some time ago, August 30 last, to be exact, 
State troopers served notices on the most brazen of these 
places that they would have to “close up and get rid of their 
customers and tear out their fixtures,’ and that they must 
“desist from keeping alcohol, brandy and other spirituous, 
vinous, etc., beverages or liquors of one-half or more of I per 
cent.” 

It was, in truth, a farce. Men were seen drinking, but no 
effort was made to arrest them, nor was any attempt made to 
seize the stored liquors. 


Mr. Racusin gives the names and addresses of a num- 
ber of places where customers can get liquor of any sort, 
without an introduction, and, apparently, without limit. 
“But why go on?” he asks, for— 


One need hardly be told of these spots. There is evidence 
sufficient of their existence on the streets. In a period of fifteen 
minutes the writer saw four drunken men on Washington 
Avenue. The press here keeps a picture of the situation con- 
tinually before the public by insisting every now and then that 
drunkenness has increased ‘50 per cent.” Nearly every month, 
as the newspaper files show, it is indicated that the number 
of arrests for drunkenness has risen 50 per cent. over what it 
was last month or year. 


In Easton, the “staid college town by the Delaware 
River,’ the writer reports that he found “not only as 
many saloons in the town as there were in pre-Volstead 
days, but a host of speak-easies beside.” He goes on: 


One need not take the writer’s word for it. Robert Stofflet, 
who represents Northampton County, of which Easton is the 
seat, in the Keystone State Legislature, has said that if some 
mythical giant took the town in the palm of his hand and gave 
it a vigorous shaking, as he would some dice, its 35,000 inhabi- 
tants would be found dripping with loosened liquors. He told 
an audience a few days ago that he could point to one block 
in Easton which before Prohibition harbored “only” five saloons, 
in which there now were not only the same five saloons, but 
also fourteen speak-easies, all doing a thriving business, and 
all quite openly and without any apparent effort at secrecy. 

Here can be seen the characteristic sign over the door an- 
nouncing that the place is a “barroom.” Here, too, are the 
swinging-screens, the polished bars with the time-honored pretzel 


PROHIBITION 147 


bowls, and heaps of hard-boiled eggs. No questions are asked 
except merely, “Scotch or rye?” 

The saloon men in Easton received no notices that their 
places would be padlocked if they didn’t close up. In the 
round of the “wet nuggets,’ as they are referred to here by 
certain authorities, one soon forgets the existence of Prohibition 
statutes. The police, in fact, seem to ignore these statutes en- 
tirely. When an occasional delinquent is picked up in the for- 
eign quarter or outskirts of the town, he is brought before the 
Municipal Court judges, not on any charge related to either 
State or Federal Prohibition laws, but on the ground that he 
has violated a local health regulation forbidding traffic in food 
products “unfit for human consumption.” 

Within a radius of three blocks in the center of the city, 
adjoining Center Square, the writer counted twelve places oper- 
ating quite openly as saloons. While before Prohibition the 
town had but thirty licensed liquor establishments, I was in- 
formed on the best authority that this number probably has been 
doubled, with the home brew evidently quite plentiful. 


A peep at some of the neighboring towns, says the 
Tribune investigator, indicated that the conditions of 
Easton were typical of most of the smaller communities 
dotting the eastern half of the state. He says he was told 
that, in the distant past— 


The motions of clapping on the lid were gone through with 
appropriate flourishes and ruffles, and some fears were felt more 
recently in certain quarters from Governor Pinchot’s padlock 
threats. But never has any move of any considerable impor- 
tance been made by either State or city authorities to bring 
liquor venders within the law since the descent upon the town 
of an army of Federal agents in August, 1922. 

Road-houses belt the city. South Delaware River Road can 
boast of these wet bungalows, while Nazareth, Freemansburg, 
New Burg, Raubsville and Belfast all can tell stories of open 
houses. In Nazareth, through the windows of a supposed ice- 
cream parlor, one may observe persons sitting at tables drink- 
ing ee ae One need not be known in these places, as I can 
testify. 


Harrisburg, the capital, says Mr. Racusin, is less 
open in its defiance of the liquor laws than most of the 
other places he visited. The police report almost double 
the number of arrests for drunkenness registered a year 
ago, but, so quietly is the traffic conducted, that “one is 
led to suspect a conspiracy of silence on the subject.” 


148 SELECTED ARTICLES 


After presenting the testimony of one of the city’s lead- 
ing pastors to the effect that the liquor laws are being 
“flagrantly violated,’ Mr. Racusin proceeds: 


As a matter of fact, the writer found a large proportion 
of the old-time saloons were doing business at their old stands 
without so much as changing the old beer signs that had been 
gathering dust in their windows for years. The recently enacted 
State enforcement law only served as an additional inducement 
to continue in the business by removing the overhead license 
tax. 

These places, variously estimated at from forty to seventy 
in number, make no effort to pose as any other than genuine 
barrooms, the bartenders in many instances being known to fre- 
quenters of pre-Volstead days. The beer offered is in the main 
of good quality, altho I am told that some days it is better than 
others. In most of these places I learned it was possible to 
obtain the harder liquors, tho one had to be introduced. 

More startling is the evidence that the old saloon with the 
picturesque back room is hanging on here, altho now a memory 
to New Yorkers. The writer visited six of these places, where 
after being properly introduced he was offered many per cent. 
beer and “shots” of moonshine. 

I found beer’and whisky selling going on in a hotel not far from 
the Capitol. In three blocks on Market Street I counted four 
places where one could obtain beer of “excellent” quality, and 
vinous spirits if one were “recognized.” 

Harrisburg, like other towns visited through the State has 
its quota of wide-open road-houses. One need only go out 
into the river drive toward Coxestown to find a bevy of them. 
Coxestown itself, a stone’s-throw from the Capitol is said to 
be dotted with illicit stills. 

What is happening as a result of these conditions? On the 
surface Harrisburg appears calm and indifferent. I am told by 
some of the citizens that few intoxicated persons are seen on 
the streets, and that brawls are uncommon. 

At Police Headquarters I was told, however, that of the city’s 
75,000 inhabitants, 682 had been arrested so far this year for 
drunkenness. The number of arrests for the whole of last year 
“was 504. In the first eighteen days of this month fifty-four 
drunkards were picked off the streets, while fifty-two were taken 
in the whole of the same month last year. 

The police pointed to the fact of thirty-three chauffeurs 
having been recently arrested for intoxication while driving, 
as a sinister development of the situation that had never been 
experience by the Capitol before. 

In the matter of preventive or corrective measures practic- 
ally nothing is being done. The County Prosecutor last fall 
gathered evidence against nearly all of the saloon-keepers, and 


PROHIBITION 149 


sought to have them convicted. The liquor men evaded punish- 
ment by contending that they had purchased beer of the legal 
alcoholic content but that it grew stronger while awaiting sale 
in their cellars. All the cases were dismissed by the country 
courts. 


Pittsburgh, the second largest city of the state, was 
described to the investigator by two of its prominent citi- 
zens as “wet enough for rubber boots,” and “positively 
rotten” as far as liquor conditions were concerned. The 
investigator reports: 


The city, in fact, is as wide open as a gaping door. It has 
been estimated that there are at least 2,000 places here where 
one may obtain high-power beer and spirituous liquors. From 
fifty to sixty drunkards are picked up on the streets by the 
police daily, and some days the big industrial plants in the 
outskirts have difficulty in operating because of the wobbly con- 
dition of their workers. 

The municipal, State and Federal authorities are making 
little headway cleaning up the city. The Federal courts are 
already clogged with 500 violation cases awaiting disposal in 
November, and a similar condition prevails in the county courts. 

There have been no threats of padlocking here, and mention 
of some such possible step by Governor Pinchot is received 
with an indifferent wave of the hand. 

Nobody seems to care. The Federal enforcement agents 
say they are not permitted to serve summonses on offenders 
after sundown, just when most of the violations take place. 
Mayor Magee declines to comment on enforcement. District 
Attorney Gardner and the county authorities generally are so 
occupied with age-old cases that they appear to have little time 
to give to present conditions. 

All of which must be thoroughly satisfactory to the hosts 
of bootleggers and liquor dispensers that are openly trafficking 
in violation of State and National laws. To the outsider, as 
to the writer, the sight is astounding. In one spot I observed 
five saloons in a row packed to the doors with beer and whisky 
drinkers and a policeman stationed outside to keep the lines 
of incoming and outgoing patrons in order. 

There was not the slightest effort made to conceal the 
nature of the business. In three of these “bars,” as their 
signs called them, four bartenders were kept on the jump 
handing out 6 per cent. beer and hard liquor for the mere ask- 
ing. 
With lines three and four deep, the familiar negro waiter 
offered slices of roast beef to the crowding patrons, the cheese 
plate and pretzel bowl at each end of the bars, it took one 


150 SELECTED ARTICLES 


back to the old Bowery days. It was hard to believe that this 
was taking place in a dry age. 


One aspect of the situation, reports Mr. Racusin, 
is that various neighboring industrial centers “often find 
themselves crippled through the opportunities offered 
their employees for indulgence in drink.” The liquor, 
popular in such sections, it appears, is colored alcohol, 
and six workmen had died from its effects within three 
days preceding his visit. He was not surprised, adds 
Mr. Racusin, when H. D. W. English, a prominent 
churchman and chairman of the Prison Board, told him 
that the jail population was on the increase. He quotes 
Mr. English, in conclusion, as follows: 


“We've got Prohibition in Pittsburgh only on paper. The 
State troopers ought to be trebled and brought into the city and 
the place cleaned up. You can’t do it with Federal troops. 
Such a suggestion is ridiculous. You can’t eliminate the saloon 
between reveille and taps any more than they can be eliminated 
by merely wishing them out of existence, which is about all 
that is being done at the present time. I have no illusion 
about the openness of the traffic, nor has any one else of our 
citizens. The situation is rotten. So far as the saloon is con- 
cerned, its business is as usual. The only apparent difference 
now is that intoxicants are a little more expensive than they 
used to be. 


BRIBEPREXGCE REDS 


The prohibition force itself is honeycombed with 
graft.—George MacAdam. World’s Work 41:510. 
March, 192i. 


As for the law-breaking of the classes which com- 
monly stand for law-abiding, it is partly resentment 
and partly bravado.—S. K. Ratcliffe. Contemporary 
Review, 120:490. October, 1921. 


Few men in any line or calling are subject to the 
temptations which beset the prohibition-enforcement 


PROHIBITION 151 


agent at almost every turn—Roy A. Haynes. Prohibi- 
tion Inside Out. p. 43. 


It is to be doubted if the bootleg traffic could sur- 
vive a month if ordinary law-abiding citizens did not at 
some step become participes criminis.—World’s Work. 


46:577. October, 1923. 


That the lack of enforcement of the prohibition laws 
has developed into a national scandal no informed per- 
son who cares to be frank can deny.—H. L. Scaife. 
Current History. 18:235. May, 1923. 


The men who put across prohibition have succeeded 
in making a nation of home-brewers and in creating 
contempt for law, asserts the Providence News.—Liter- 
ary Digest. 71:13. October 15, 1921. 


In the larger cities of the country at least fifty per 
cent of the moonshiners apprehended by enforcement of- 
ficers are unable to speak English, and nine moonshin- 
ers out of every ten are foreign born.—foy A. Haynes. 
Prohibition Inside Out. p. 21. 


The chief patron of the bootlegger is the well-to-do 
business man. Take away his patronage and the boot- 
legging traffic would fizzle out—George W. Wheeler, 
Chief Justice Supreme Court of Connecticut, im a letter 
to Elbert H. Gary, under date of August Ist, 1923. 


The money that has been expended in the past few 
years in the corruption of the federal [prohibition en- 
forcement] service is incalculable. It must run to enor- 
mous figures —T. Henry Walnut. Annals of the Ameri- 
can Academy. 109:206. September, 1923. 


Laboratory tests show that bootleg liquor and the 
ante-prohibition liquors are much the same, considered 


152 SHEEOG TED VAR DIGiics 


from a toxic viewpoint.—Charles P. Howard, Chemist, 
New Hampshire State Board of Health. New York 
Times. June 15, 1924. 


Prohibition has never had a fair chance. By ex- 
empting enforcement officers from the operation of the 
federal civil service law the Volstead Act turned them 
all over to political patronage and made enforcement 
a political game—ZImogen B. Oakley. Annals of the 
American Academy. 109:165. September, 1923. 


The federal laws had been granted more respect than 
local laws. There had been about the federal processes 
of justice an impersonal relentlessness that was dreaded 
even by the professional criminal. But this respect 
passed with the development of prohibition—T. Henry 
Walnut. Annals of the American Acudemy. 109: 203. 
September, 1923. 


ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS 


San Francisco Los Angeles 
LODO Oe Wasa raat e s INMN 2,T30' LOZO ee a cate ky re ce 3,357 
TOZT A ear i wedi etl ke witere 5,547 TO2TWANA sae ree ee ee 6,559 
1022 Ate RET ees (320.9). TO 22 WRC dead ee elie ee 9,911 
1923) Mee ate eran a 10,577 Po lO23 ce er aNd ae aren 12,839 


—Daily Commercial News (San Francisco). January 10, 
1924. 


“The greatest breeder of crime and criminals in 
America is the failure to enforce the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment. Failure of the United States government to 
do its plain and simple duty under the law is the main 
cause of lawlessness today. Immunity for crimes 
against the Eighteenth amendment has encouraged other 
crimes until today we face a situation in which not only 
the criminal classes but the great bulk of honest citi- 
zens thruout the country is firmly convinced that the 
government does not really intend to enforce the law. 
“T know of no scandal in our national! history to com- 


PROHIBITION 153 


pare with it.’—Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania as 
quoted im the Cleveland Press. January 17, 1924. 


Enforcement of prohibition laws in Ohio is result- 
ing in heavy expense to society and the state with 
widely different results in the collection of liquor fines 
in the different counties. A state wide investigation 
just completed by The Plain Dealer shows many liquor 
law violators held in county jails for refusal or in- 
ability to pay fines, families of some of them in desti- 
tute circumstances and a growing restlessness on the 
part of both county officials and public at continuing 
to shoulder the growing cost of letting prisoners 
“lay out” their fines while the public pays for their 
“keep” and sometimes that of their families—Cleveland 
Plain Dealer. January 20, 1924. 


“Last year we analyzed 40,000 samples of liquor 
seized by the government in all parts of the country”, 
said James M. Doran, head of the Industrial Alcohol 
and Chemical Division of the Prohibition Unit, Wash- 
ington, D.C. Only 2% were genuine—98% were imi- 
tations and unfit to drink. The majority were poisonous. 
Virtually no liquor is coming into this country from 
Scotland, England or Continental Europe. All of the 
stuff smuggled in by rum runners is bad raw alcohol, 
made in Cuba from blackstrap molasses, then shipped 
to Nassau where it is colored and flavored. All brands 
are made from the same vat and bottled under counter- 
feit labels —A. B. MacDonald and Hugh S. Cummings. 
Ladies Home Journal. 40:181. May, 1923. 


The sewer inspector of North Tarrytown, N.Y. 
has been compelled to beseech by public proclamation 
the good citizens of his town to refrain from throwing 
the refuse from their private—and illicit—stills into 
the sewers. Grain, mash, prune pits, and like discards 
have clogged and choked the pipes to the necessity for 


154 SELECTED ARTICLES 


repair, and realizing the absurdity of requesting a law 
governing or even restricting the performance of an 
illegal act, the inspector falls back on good-natured ap- 
peal. Sooner or later the home brewer and distiller must 
have his own disposal plant, or at least some nomen- 
clature committee may have to decide whether hooch 
refuse is sewage or garbage.”—The Engineering News- 
Record (editorial). 59:172. August 3, 1922. 


There are approximately 500 cereal-beverage manu- 
facturing plants in the United States. Over 200 of these 
plants have been reported during the past 12 months for 
violations of law. Approximately 125 of them have 
been placed under seizure. Approximately 75 of such 
companies have settled their civil liabilities by compro- 
mise where the case arose prior to August 8, 1921. 
Those arising subsequent to said date were settled by 
a compromise of their civil liabilities after a plea of 
guilty to the criminal information filed against them. 
The unit has refused to issue permits to some 48 brew- 
ers who have violated the law under permits previously 
issued.—r1922 Yearbook of the Anti-Saloon League. 
p. 86. 


The amount of beer illegally made in breweries is 
in volume very small. This is clearly proved by the 
Internal Revenue reports. The brewer who is occa- 
sionally making real beer reports it as a cereal beverage, 
and he would be foolish to attempt to do anything else. 
The total output of cereal beverages for the last fiscal 
year was approximately 5%4 million barrels for the en- 
tire United States, which is considerably less than one- 
tenth of the former beer output of the United States. 
The home brew business is negligible. Home brews 
are troublesome and unsatisfactory. Undoubtedly, how- 
ever, a considerable amount of such beer is being made 
by saloonkeepers themselves.—Hugh F. Fox, secretary 


PROHIBITION 155 


United States Brewers’ Association in a letter dated 
January 28, 1924. 


It is virtually impossible to buy good whiskey from 
the illicit liquor interests in the United States today. 
What the bootlegger offers as high grade imported whis- 
key or bottled-in-bond stuff is neither. In 95 per cent 
of the cases, or more, it is moonshine—not pure and 
simple, but watered, thinned down, adulterated, and fear- 
fully doctored with chemicals, many poisonous, to give 
it color, a “kick,’ and a bead. When reports of huge 
smuggling operations are circulated, it should be remem- 
bered that the illicit liquor interests are conducting a 
great and elaborate propaganda campaign to discredit 
law enforcement, and that the spreading of such reports 
is part and parcel of that campaign. No bootlegger, 
of course, is willing to admit that he can obtain only 
adulterated moonshine. Hence, fanciful tales of the wet 
wave sweeping in on our coasts, and other related false- 
hoods swung from mouth to mouth to hide the real and 
dangerous origin of what the bootlegger has to sell. 
—Roy A. Haynes. Prohibition Inside Out. p. 15. 


In 1921 while visiting one of the college fraternities 
at Syracuse University I was told three different times, 
each time by a different student, and each time in the 
presence of one or more other students, that a member 
of that fraternity, who had completed his work at Syra- 
cuse University a year or two before, had made a hun- 
dred thousand dollars in the previous year by bootleg- 
ging. They said he operated in and around New York 
City, having his own cars which brought the liquor from 
Canada. They also said that while at Syracuse Uni- 
versity the man in question had been a star athlete, 
had played on the Syracuse University varsity football 
team, and had been ranked by Walter Camp as a mem- 
ber of his second All-American team. The thing about 


156 SELECTED ARTICLES 


the incident that impressed me most was that all the 
members of this fraternity seemed to know all about 
it, seemed willing to tell all they knew, and seemed 
quite proud of it, for it was one of the things they men- 
tioned in a boasting way. 

Similar bootlegging operations, carried on in 192C 
by several students at Dartmouth College, came to pub- 
lic attention when a member of the senior class was 
murdered by a member of the junior class as the result 
of a quarrel over whiskey which they had smuggled 
from Canada by automobile. Further details may be 
found in the newspapers of June 17, 18, and 19, 1920, 
—Lamar T. Beman. 


For years the custom in Cleveland has been to “gol- 
den rule” men only slightly intoxicated, releasing them 
as soon as they sobered. But although the number of 
golden ruled has been increasing since 1920, only 12,408 
were golden ruled in 1923, as compared with 25,443 in 
1917, while the number held for court has jumped to 
6,334 in 1923 from 1,209 in 1917. Arrests for intoxi- 
cation from 1917 through 1923 show a decline up to 
1920, but an increase from then on. Figures taken 
from yearly statistics kept by Chief Jacob Graul follow: 


Held for Golden 
Year court ruled Total 
TOT ci ca eles ota re 1,209 25,443 26,652 
LOIS aie area aise ie Mimian ota 858 20,091 20,949 
FOIQT ATR ee een eis ee 495 12,959 13,454 
TQ2O iiiehd < WELLE ITE AO, ses tare 474 9,050 9,524 
TOQT(). Ars mate, Metane i aha tar 2,834. 9,642 12,476 
TO22 Gy ei cie Saree anc en eee 4,434 12,246 16,680 
TO23) LOVE RR) Tee OR 6,334 12,408 18,742 


Prohibition went into effect in Ohio in May, 1g19. 
Enforcement did not get under way until the following 
vear. These figures are arrests by police only. They 
do not include thousands of arrests by federal and state 
agents and special dry constables hired by justices of 
the peace.—Cleveland Plain Dealer. January 11, 1924. 


AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION 


a ea 
; Fh Wl Bee Aine 7 


eon 





PROHIBITION’S RESULTS! 


In any attempt to estimate the results of prohibition 
it is necessary to recall the promises made for that sys- 
tem before it was fastened upon the country. The peo- 
ple were told that its operations would cause improve- 
ment in public health, promote prosperity, make the 
wage-earner» more contented and efficient, raise the 
standards of morals and greatly reduce vice and crime. 
Particular emphasis was laid upon the last prediction, 
for alcohol in beverage form was held by prohibition 
protagonists to be at the root of almost every human 
ill and the chief direct cause of all offenses against law 
and order. 

The system has now been in operation throughout 
the United States for upward of two years. I have 
seen some figures that lead me to believe that the gen- 
eral health of the people has somewhat improved during 
these two years, though from causes not connected with 
prohibition, and it is significant that the largest indus- 
trial life insurance company reports an increase of 50 
per cent in deaths due to alcoholism in 1921, the second 
eadry year. 

In connection with the prohibitionists’ claim that the 
nation’s health has been bettered through their action, 
the following from the Statistical Bulletin of the Met- 
ropolitan Life Insurance Company, April, 1922, is of 
interest : 

There have been marked increases in the death rates for 
heart disease, Bright’s disease and apoplexy in recent months 


1 By Stuyvesant Fish, former president of the Illionis Central Rail- 
road, Current History. 16: 377-85. June, 1922. 


160 SELECTEDRAKTIGLES 


among the industrial policyholders of the Metropolitan Life 
Insurance Company. Small increases in the mortality from 
these diseases had been noticed early in November of last year, 
but the change attracted little attention and caused little com- 
ment. The possibility that it marked a definite check in the 
favorable tendency shown for several years for each of these 
diseases was not seriously considered. By December, however, 
the death rate had taken a more decided upward turn for each 
disease. Organic heart disease registered a rate of 124.9 as 
compared with 118.4 in November; the apoplexy rate rose from 
62.9 to 70.6 and that for Bright’s disease from 69.1 to 71.9. 
By January it had become apparent that for two of these dis- 
eases, at least, a definite upward tendency was in progress. 
The heart disease rate increased sharply from the December 
figure of 124.9 to 137.2, and that for chronic nephritis went up 
nearly three points over the December figure. The apoplexy 
rate for this one month fell somewhat. In February the heart 
disease figure rose even more sharply than for January (to 
153.4), the nephritis rate again increased slightly (to 75.8), and 
that for apoplexy returned to approximately the December level. 
By March the rate for organic heart disease had reached 
168.2 per 100,000, one of the highest figures ever recorded in 
any one month among Metropolitan industrial policyholders. 
The March rates for chronic nephritis (87.5) and for apoplexy 
(75.8) are both the highest registered for those diseases since 
March, 1920. 


Assuming for the sake of argument—without ad- 
mitting the truth of the assertion—that prohibition is to 
be credited with a decreased death rate, it must, on the 
other hand, be charged with the business depression; 
and in every other respect it has failed absolutely to 
justify the promises held out in its behalf. Prosperity, 
which was at flood tide when the system became ef- 
fective, has disappeared ; the wage-earner desperately and 
oiten vainly hunts for work to keep himself and his 
family alive; moral standards have sunk to the lowest 
ebb, and, finally, a wave of criminality sweeping over the 
whole country shows no sign of diminishing. 

The proportions of this crime wave cannot be ac- 
curately stated, but they can be guessed from the ac- 
companying table based upon the police returns of thirty 


PROHIBITION 161 


cities having an aggregate population of almost ten and 
a half millions. These cities were not selected designedly, 
being simply those whose returns happened to have been 
completed and verified at the time of writing; they are 
a first exhibit in an attempt to get the criminal statistics 
of all municipalities having a population of one hundred 
thousand or more according to the 1920 census. The 
table covers for the most part the calendar years 1920 
and 1921, corresponding practically to the first two years 
of prohibition, though it should be noted that Boston’s 
returns present a comparison between the municipal fiscal 
years ended March 31, 1921, and March 31, 1922, and 
that as the figures for the full calendar year 1920 were 
not obtainable in Oakland, Cal., the records of the last 
six months of 1920 and the same period in 1921 have 
been selected as the exhibit for that city. The marked 
falling off in crime in 1921, in Akron, Ohio, as compared 
to 1920, is explained by the great loss in population which 
that city suffered, due to collapse in the automobile tire 
industry. 

The cities represented in the table are located in all 
parts of the United States, and hence a graphic cross- 
section view of the whole country is presented. No re- 
turns from such mammoth urban centers as New York 
and Chicago, which might be expected to make the ex- 
hibit of criminality more striking and, so to speak, 
overload the tabulation, are given. One city having more 
than a million inhabitants, six ranging from five hundred 
thousand to one million, and nine between two hundred 
thousand and five hundred thousand, and fourteen with 
less than two hundred thousand population each, are in- 
cluded. In these cities, which may fairly be said to 
represent the United States as a whole, we find in a single 
year that crime of all kinds (as shown by police arrests) 
has grown almost 24 per cent; that drunkenness and 
drunkenness coupled with disorderly conduct have grown 


162 SELECTED ARTICLES 


more than 40 per cent; that theft, homicide, burglary, 
fraud and embezzlement, with other serious crimes, all 
show notable increases. The futility of prohibition as 
a means of preventing men from drinking is shown in 
the increased arrests of intoxicated autoists, amounting 
to more than 80 per cent, and in the increase in the 
arrests for violation of the prohibition laws, amounting 
to more than 100 per cent. Perhaps, however, the most 
sinister item in the tabulation is that showing the growth 
of the deadly drug habit, the arrests indicating a jump 
of almost 45 per cent. 

The police returns, in this respect, are not as strik- 
ing as those coming from other sources. The Commis- 
sioner of Public Welfare of New York City, for instance, 
reports that the cases of drug addiction treated in Kings 
County Hospital in 1919 were 116, and in 1921 were 
961. The alcoholism cases in 1918 were 1,145, and in 
1921 were 1,168, indicating that prohibition, which at 
first had seemed to reduce this phase of the drink evil, 
had become ineffective. The Federal Prison at Leaven- 
worth, Kansas, has become overcrowded with liquor and 
drug prisoners, the major being of the latter variety. 
The net increase in prisoners since December 21, 1921, 
is given as 476 by The Milwaukee Daily Leader. In the 
City Hospital at St. Louis, according to The St. Louis 
Post Dispatch, there were 3,198 alcoholic cases treated 
in 1921, an increase of almost 100 per cent. 

Returns are made on police department expenditures 
by twenty-three of the thirty cities, and of these all but 
three report increases. Of the three cities which re- 
duced police expenditures two reported that such econo- 
mies were made necessary, despite crime increases, be- 
cause they no longer enjoyed the revenues accruing from 
license fees. The net increase in police costs in 1921 over 
1920 for the twenty-three cities reporting was $3,539,- 
OO5:27. 


PROHIBITION 163 


CRIME UNDER PROHIBITION IN THIRTY AMERICAN CITIES 


Population Arrests All Causes Drunkenness and 














1920 1920 1921 Disorderly Conduct 

1920 1921 

Philadelphia .... 1,823,779 73,015 83,136 20,443 27,115 
POCTEOML Tea Fes: 995,078 43,309 50,676 5,989 6,349 
BIOSLOTIG s/as. o1!- 748,060 58,817 T2305 22,341 31,794 
ESATLINOLCO cs 2 47. 733,826 41,988 54,002 13,443 20,496 
Pittsburgh ..... 588,343 36,572 41,820 14,373 16,990 
Bit alOMen oo 506,775 24,430 82,377. 8,491 9,650 
San Francisco... 506,676 26,672 30,106 2,794 6,005 
Milwaukee ..... 457,147 10,545 15,520 2,400 3,481 
Gincinnatio lc 4). 401,247 14,175 21,073 2,062 3,106 
Minneapolis .... 380,582 10,608 17,374 2,982 6,051 
Portland, Ore... 258,288 18,445 30,856 3,654 4,379 
Denverieee os: 256,491 12,947 19,649 1,847 3,163 
Louisville ...... 234,891 7,857 9,601 1,092 2,361 
Seer aie ca 234,608 5,638 10,077 1,902 4,319 
@akland.) Galsy).) ¥216,281 3,700 4,497 1,261 2,191 
Akron, Ohio .... 208,435 12,558 10,104 5,228 3,939 
Birmingham .... 178,806 16,786 21,488 2,886 4,612 
Richmond... 171,667 12,706 15,532 1,563 1,053 
New Haven.... 162,537 7,034 8,465 3,186 3,184 
Ja La Soe cere, aie 158,976 26,058 35,848 1,219 1,338 
Wiartiordico... i 138,036 8,072 7,305 4,057 3,207 
Patterson ...... 135,875 4,058 3,800 1,637 1,509 
Springfield, Mass. 120,614 Q7n7 4,574 625 920 
Des Moines..... 126,468 4,465 4,982 1,530 1,598 
MiTentONa atta: 5 119,289 5,603 5,577 1,550 1,426 
Salt Lake City.. 118,110 7,728 7,505 883 900 
NID ATV sue g ete 113,344 3,216 4,168 578 900 
Cambridge, Mass. 109,604 3,822 4,064 871 1,423 
spokane ....... 104,437 6,478 FLY) 933 13 
Kansas ity; Kane |) 101,177 4,774 4,129 45 133 
Ll Ofaiauen cts. 10,417,227 516,835 640,402 131,855 185,808 
Total in 30 Cities 1920 1921 Increase 
Violation of Prohibition Laws.... 9,375 18,976 102.0% 
APTN Ke ATILOISESY ails ake wit nia cess s 1,513 2,743 81.0% 
Mehertseana burgiarveecesmce ot. a. 24,770 26,888 0.0% 
\BWoteetlel Vald iar Mo pR riage oh 8 es OL ne ae 1,086 1,224 12.7% 
Prcsntitseand.| Datterymrsymetamiacs. 21147 23; ye 13.4% 
MO Lupe A AdICtIONS., CLCwie cece nel 1,807 745 44.6% 
Police Department Costs ........ $31,193, ee eu nee 196 11.4% 


The increase in police costs represents but one part, 
and, perhaps, the smallest part, of the additional burden 
upon the public. As is well known, the prohibition cases 


164 SELECTED <ARTICEES 


are congesting the Federal courts and the courts of 
those states which have seen fit to enact enforcement 
laws to a degree heretofore unknown. The costs involved 
in the arraignment of prohibition prisoners, their mainte- 
nance when in detention, the costs of jurors, of trials 
and of witnesses must mount up into many millions, 
though they cannot be even approximately stated, as they 
are seldom segregated in court accounting. One serious 
result of the congestion in the courts has been the delay 
in the disposition of other than prohibition cases. “Jus- 
tice delayed is justice denied,” is an old proverb having 
its striking exemplification today. Nobody can measure 
the injury done to the business world by the situation 
prevailing. 

The exact number of prohibition cases handled and 
pending in the courts of the states is also beyond com- 
putation. The following record for 1921 in New York 
City gives an idea of their great volume: 


VA STESLOCON. site cab eticorcm atl atcial slercls cat cp! Mae EN wane nc RL 5,922 
Held groretsrande ary tera tics ce leaetcltos cota 3,258 
Date Flora sYe Bien TA tina ee Meri nap has ues Dray May oly 454 
Pleddedt oiler iie cee Lhe nian ar heed adaneene 04 
RS OUVICTER a hed Selec ariel Rima sree ees Maing oman 18 


As for Federal court conditions, the. Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue in his report for the fiscal year ended 
June 30, 1921, stated: “At the beginning of the fiscal 
year 21,372 prohibition cases were pending. During the 
year 98,349 prohibition cases were received, 51,388 cases 
were closed as to both civil and criminal liability, leaving 
68,333 open cases in the files June 30, 1921.” Thus the 
pending cases at the end of the year exceeded those pend- 
ing at the end of the previous year by 46,961. It was 
this condition which caused the demand, led by the At- 
torney General, for legislation authorizing the appoint- 
ment of a score of new Federal judges, so that a heroic 
effort might be made to clear the court calendars. 

There is a disposition in some quarters to blame the 
World War for the enormous increase in criminality in 


PROHIBITION 165 


the United States, and there is no question at all that 
the great conflict had its aftermath of disorder in every 
country engaged. But those countries which suffered 
far more than the United States—countries which lost 
far more men, had much more property destroyed and 
endured the strain much longer—have now measurably 
recovered their poise, whereas in our own country crime, 
instead of subsiding, continues to increase. Those other 
countries have not prohibition; we have. 

Let us illustrate with a few figures from England 
and Wales. In 1920 the convictions for drunkenness in 
the two countries totaled ninety-five thousand in round 
numbers. The Liquor Control Board created on account 
of the war was still in charge, and it was predicted that 
when the war regulations were relaxed a flood of drunk- 
enness would result. However, the regulations were re- 
laxed by statutory enactment in 1921, and the drunken- 
ness convictions dropped to 77,789. In 1920 the propor- 
tion of convictions to inhabitants was 258 per 100,000. 
In 1921 it was 205 per 100,000. Some detailed figures 
may prove interesting: 


Convictions for 


Drunkenness 
1920 1921 
[Eh Rqrag ys ebed abchaw Gis vehopunl fein AARC Sade Bios 1,743 
MEIVER POOL cere thee chloe anes 8,500 6,386 
WOrkshire elas oem uss eea es 10,269 7,008 
FEGTCGr Ween sh eats ease es emer UALS 29,956 27,420 


Before dismissing the general subject of crime, I in- 
vite attention to the following from the report of the 
Secretary of State of New York: 


Crime convictions in Courts of Special Sessions and Courts 
of Record totaled 55,516 in I92I, as compared with 40,691 in 
1920. 

Convictions for intoxication in Courts of Special Sessions 
in 1921 totaled 10,291, as compared with 5,287 in 1920. 


Unfortunately, I have been unable to get statistics 
of this character from other states. I have no doubt, 


166 SELECTED ARTICLES 


however, judging from the police returns in hand, that 
New York’s experience is not unique among states com- 
posing the Federal Union. 


Loss oF REVENUE 


The loss in public revenues due to prohibition mounts 
up into the hundreds of millions. Before the advent of 
prohibition many states and cities, the latter, especially, 
collected license fees from sellers of drink. These were 
ordinarily estimated at $100,C000,000 annually, but per- 
haps $75,000,000 would be nearer the mark in recent 
years, due to adoption of prohibition by a number of 
states. The Federal revenue derived from liquors in the 
fiscal year, ended June 30, 1919, was $483,000,000. In this. 
year, moreover, there were still numerous restric- 
tions on the sale of drink growing out of the war. So 
it may be safely concluded that each year of prohibition 
has caused a loss in public revenue of approximately 
$560,000,000 or a total of $1,120,000,000 for the two- 
year period. 

This loss must, of course, be made up by the tax- 
payer in some other way, and it assumes an especially 
vexatious aspect when he reads the prediction of the 
Secretary of the Treasury of a deficit of perhaps $450,- 
000,000 in the next fiscal year, without calculating such 
contingencies as, for instance, the proposed bonus. It is 
this situation that has recently added such strength to 
the movement to restore non-intoxicating beer and wines 
to a legal status, as may be done with perfect propriety 
under the Eighteenth Amendment. 

In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1914, the produc- 
tion of beer in the United States reached over sixty-six 
million barrels—its highest mark. It is estimated that, 
what with the growth in population and the removal of 
the competition of spirits, beer sales would shortly reach 
one hundred million barrels yearly. This amount at the 
former rate of tax would yield $600,000,000 to the Fed- 


PROHIBITION 167 


eral treasury. The output of wine, it is generally be- 
lieved, would soon reach one hundred million gallons, 
which at 40 cents a gallon tax, as proposed, would yield 
a revenue of $50,000,000. To this might be added $40,- 
000,000 which states and cities would cellect in the form 
of license fees from dealers, and a total public revenue 
of $690,000,000 annually is indicated. This estimate 
does not take into account such factors as increased in- 
come taxes, customs duties, increased property taxes and 
the like, which might add $25,000,000 more to the public 
revenues. 
CONSUMPTION oF ALCOHOL 


The question naturally arises: To what extent, if at 
all, has the consumption of alcohol in beverage form 
been reduced by prohibition in the United States? Here 
the statistician must proceed cautiously. It is known 
that great quantities of potent spirits have been smuggled 
into the country from Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, 
and through all seaports, and that the flood continues in 
apparently undiminished volume; but any attempt at 
measurement would be futile. It is known, also, that 
“moonshine,” that is the making of illicit spirits, has 
erown to huge proportions and that it has spread from 
its original domicile in the southern highlands to the farm 
in the broad prairie and the tenement house in the great 
city wand indeed, to revery) part) olathe country.) Flere 
again the quantities produced and consumed are beyond 
the wildest conjecture. We have the report of the Com- 
missioner of Internal Revenue to show that 95,933 dis- 
tilling appliances were seized in the last fiscal year ended 
June 30, 1921, but as to how much liquor was made and 
disposed of before these seizures and how many hundreds 
of thousands of stills escaped seizure and what their out- 
put was and is, there is and can be no hint. We get 
a little light on the subject of private beer-making when 
we learn that some fifty thousand bales of hops are cut 
up into small packages in a year, indicating a production 


168 SELECTED VAR TICEES 


by the home-brewer of ten million barrels which figure 
is verified to some degree by the sale of malt and malt 
compounds in small amounts. And there are official docu- 
ments available which shed a good deal of light upon 
the production and consumption of wine under the present 
conditions. 

A report by the California State Board of Agricul- 
ture, published in August, 1921, is devoted to the viticul- 
ture industry. It shows that in 1920 the growers sold 
three hundred and seventy-five thousand tons of their 
grapes at prices which at times reached over $200 a ton 
and averaged $95 a ton, the latter figure being about 400 
per cent above the normal. These grapes would make or- 
dinarily over fifty million gallons of wine. The rail ship- 
ments of grapes from California were 26,738 cars, and 
from other states 11,938 cars, the latter indicating twenty 
to twenty-five million gallons of wine. In addition there 
were imported into the United States, in 1920, 230,202 
tons of raisins, or ten times as many as were imported 
in all the four previous years, and 27,916 tons of cur- 
rants, as many tons as were imported in all the four 
previous years. Raisins and currants, nobody needs tell- 
ing, are largely used by wine-makers. Taking also into 
account the fact that millions of persons who had fruits 
and berries of their own, or could readily get them, have 
been making wine or cider at home on an unexampled 
scale, an estimate of one million gallons consumed in 
a year seems to be conservative. The boom in wine 
grapes has been one of the remarkable developments 
under prohibition, and is responsible for the planting of 
new vineyards in California alone to the extent of eighty- 
five thousand acres (estimated) in the single year of 1920. 

It is important to note that the home-brewed beer and 
the home-made wine are much stronger as a rule than 
the commercial article. In the case of beer the home- 
brewer has no way of checking a full fermentation, which 
results in an alcoholic content of 6 to 8 per cent, as 


PROHIBITION 169 


against 3 to 4 for the commercial article. In the case 
of wine the home-made article is almost invariably treated 
with sugar or some other element which develops much 
more alcohol in the fermentative process. 


PROPERTY DESTROYED 


Prohibition destroyed almost wholly industries rep- 
resenting a capitalization of more than $1,250,000,000. 
The magnitude of these industries may be realized by 
inspecting the subjoined tables, compiled from the United 
States census of manufacturers in 1914: 





No. of Persons 

Plants Capitalization Engaged 

PUSHIN CUE nies, @ tiectsts 434 $91,285,000 8,322 

AST EW IT gare ie cscs echt 1,250 792,914,000 75,434 

Vinous liquors ...... 318 31,516,000 3,188 

MAINO maces Ue tats 97 46,767,000 2,548 

A Ota leita ee 2,099 $962,482,000 89,492 
Annual Paid for Value 

Wages Materials of Products 

Pistiilinomene ne. wes 4 $3,994,000 $40,997,000  $206,779,000 

HPC WiiGan ewes tect. 53,244,000 129,724,000 442,149,000 

Vinous liquors ...... 1,194,000 9,489,000 16,618,000 

MVLALEIN Oadies cis eesteie 6 vic’ 1,828,000 39,199,000 48,133,000 

FLOtaleae tals $60,260,000 $219,409,000 $713,679,000 


Besides these there were the wholesale and retail hand- 
lers of the products. Almost all of this has gone. There 
are breweries making cereal beverages and other soft 
drinks, but the extent of this business can be guessed 
when it is stated that the number of employees does not 
equal 10 per cent of the personnel in pre-prohibition days. 
The wineries are likewise running with largely reduced 
forces, though they are still permitted to sell for medicinal 
and sacramental purposes. Legal distilling is also at a 
minimum. 

The revival of brewing and wine-making might be 
expected to result in the direct employment of some 


130 SELECTED ARTICLES 


seventy-five thousand wage-earners, with pay of $75,- 
000,000 a year, for wages are still at a higher figure than 
in 1914; in expenditures for materials, fuel, machinery 
and supplies of perhaps $250,000,000, and in the indirect 
employment of many thousands of workers in transporta- 
tion and the supplying industries and the distributing 
trades. The effect on agriculture would be marked, for 
brewing barley would be restored to its place as a pre- 
mium grain and from eighty to one hundred million 
bushels purchased annually at high prices for malting 
purposes. As it is, the barley crop has served to depress 
the whole grain market. Similarly, American hops, 
which have been shut out of European markets by tariffs 
and other discriminating regulations, would be in demand 
at good prices. 

The experience of Sweden and Norway, with laws 
discriminating in favor of the lighter and against the 
heavier alcoholic beverages, and, more latterly, the ex- 
perience of Quebec and British Columbia, indicate what 
‘may be expected in the United States if beer and light 
wines are admitted again to legal status. Quebec’s ex- 
periment possesses particular interest to us. Public in- 
toxication and crime in general have been largely re- 
duced; the provincial revenues have been augmented by 
some $4,000,000 for the first year, and this sum is being 
used to build good roads, to support schools and to ex- 
tinguish the public debt, which feat, it is estimated, will 
be accomplished in twenty years. The saloon is abso- 
lutely abolished, and the bootleggers, who before were 
abundant, have disappeared. 

Commercial and industrial depression reached the 
lowest levels in the history of the country in the second 
year of national prohibition. The United States Secre- 
tary of Labor submitted figures to a Congressional com- 
mittee during the year showing that six million workers 
were out of employment. The reform in our banking 
system is generally credited with having prevented a 


PROHIBITION 171 


total collapse of the commercial structure during 1921, 
yet at the same time the business failures of the year 
were the largest ever known in point of liabilities, which 
aggregated $627,401,883, or 75 per cent, greater than in 
1914, the next largest year. The improvement in condi- 
tions in recent months, while gratifying, has not been 
powerful enough to affect all kinds of business or all 
sections of the country. 


UNDERMINING LAW AND ORDER 


It will be admitted, I believe, that the greatest injuries 
inflicted by national prohibition are not capable of sta- 
tistical demonstration. The Eighteenth Amendment 
opened a great breach in the constitutional structure, 
shocking to those who admired its logical symmetry, and 
highly dangerous in its invitation to further innovation. 
Giving full force to the plea that the amendment was 
adopted in strict accordance with custom and precedent, 
the fact remains that the people had no opportunity of 
directly expressing their sentiments regarding it, as would 
have been the case had it been submitted to conventions 
instead of legislatures; hence the faith of the people in 
representative institutions is greatly weakened. The Vol- 
stead Act and the supplements thereto are so contrary 
to American traditions and practices as to arouse wide- 
spread opposition. The workers rightfully regard such 
enactments as being practically class legislation, and their 
feeling of deep resentment is pardonable, all classes of 
citizens are united in their detestation of legislation based 
on falsehood and violative of the most cherished rights 
and privileges, and disrespect for all law is thereby 
fostered. In such conditions the professional law violator 
is likely to be tolerated and encouraged and the smug- 
eler, the bootlegger, the moonshiner and the grafting of- 
ficial achieve wealth quickly and easily. These and the 
professional prohibitionist are the only persons in the 
community who prosper in the present situation. 


172 SELECTED ARTICLES 


Again we have the spectacle of sworn officers of the 
law deliberately violating the most sacred parts of the 
Constitution in an effort to enforce prohibition. Every 
time a vehicle is halted on the road and a person’s suit- 
case or clothing is searched; every time private premises 
are invaded without a search warrant, the Bill of Rights, 
without the promise of which the Constitution could not 
have been adopted, is violated flagrantly. It is confessed 
by the prohibitionists in Congress that the Volstead Act 
cannot be enforced if the provisions against search and 
seizure in the Fourth Amendment are observed, and they 
have voted down propositions to punish officers who vio- 
late the Bill of Rights. The press teems with such in- 
stances of official tyranny and law-breaking, but, unfortu- 
nately, this species of crime cannot be presented sta- 
tistically. 

The youth of the land, the only hope of the future, 
is subjected to the most potently demoralizing influences. 
Never before in the history of our country has it been 
found necessary to forego the school dance, the com- 
munity social, even the church entertainment, because of 
the fear—based on experience—that boys and girls would 
disgrace the gathering by getting drunk. 

Finally, the real reason for the country-wide infrac- 
tions of the Volstead Act is that it has not the respect of 
the American people, because it is a lie made into a law, 
and if there is one nation in the world that resents such 
an insult to intelligence, it is this nation of ours. 

If every state, instead of some of them, had statutes 
to the effect that 14 of 1 per cent of alcohol was intoxi- 
cating, it would not make it any more true than if the 
same number of states were to say in their legislation 
that sweet milk is intoxicating. One-half of 1 per cent 
of alcohol is legally intoxicating, but it is a lie just the 
same. The law should be observed, but I maintain it is 
entitled to no respect. 

As a final and conclusive proof of the definition of 


PROHIBITION 173 


“intoxicating,” I quote from the decision of the United 
States Supreme Court, January 5, 1920, in the case of 
Ruppert vs. Caffey (No. 603, October Term, 1919) : “The 
Government freely admits, since the present case stands 
upon motion to dismiss a bill which plainly alleges that 
the beer in question is non-intoxicating, we must accept 
that allegation as true and beyond controversy.” This 
referred to litigation in which the 2.75 standard played 
a part, the government admitting that a beverage con- 
taining no more than that percentage of alcohol could 
not be intoxicating, 


MAKING FOR LAWLESSNESS * 


It would be lacking in frankness and sincerity not 
to point out two important and law-made influences which 
are now making, and seem likely long to make, for law- 
lessness in American life. The American people as a 
whole cannot escape full share of the responsibility for 
these two influences, although they are in part due, no 
doubt, to what Walt Whitman described as “the never- 
ending audacity of elected persons.’ The first is the 
Fifteenth Amendment, proclaimed in 1870, and the second 
is the Eighteenth Amendment, proclaimed in 1919. In 
form and in fact, and judged by all the usual tests and 
standards, these two amendments to the Constitution of 
the United States are part of the organic law, with all 
the rights and authority which attach thereto. Never- 
theless, they are not obeyed by large numbers of highly 
intelligent and morally sensitive people, and there is no 
likelihood that they can ever be enforced, no matter at 
what expenditure of money or of effort, or at what 
cost of infringement or neglect of other equally valid 


1 By Nicholas Murray Butler. An address before the Ohio State Bar 
Association, January 26, 1923. p. 10-16 as published as Tracts for Today 
No. 11. Obtained from Post Office Box 213, Substation 84, New York 
City 


174 SELECTED ARTICLES 


provisions of the same Constitution. The purpose of 
those who advocated and secured the adoption of these 
two amendments was excellent, but they did not stop to 
deal with the realities of politics and of public morals. 

The situation with regard to the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment is even worse, because the revolt against it is not 
confined to men and women of intelligence and moral 
sensitiveness in one section alone, but is nation-wide. It 
will not do to attempt to silence these persons by abuse 
or by catch phrases and formulas of the hustings. These 
men and women dissent entirely from the grounds upon 
which the case for the Eighteenth Amendment was 
rested, and they regard its provisions and those of the 
statutes based upon it as a forcible, an immoral and a 
tyrannical invasion of their private life and personal con- 
duct. They have no possible interest in liquor traffic, 
and they are without exception opposed to the saloon. 
But they are equally opposed to making the Constitution 
of the United States the vehicle of a police regulation 
affecting the entire country, and dealing not alone with 
matters of public interest and public reference, but with 
the most intimate details of personal and private life, in- 
cluding food, drink and medical treatment. The moral 
sense, as well as the common sense, of very many people 
is affronted by a policy which will expend millions of 
dollars and use the methods of Czarist Russia and of the 
Spanish Inquisition to enforce one provision of law, while 
others of far greater significance and public importance 
are accorded conventional treatment or less. 

It will startle many excellent people to hear the fol- 
lowing sentences from the recent book of Outspoken 
Essays: second series, written by the Dean of St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, London. The author, Dr. Inge, is one of the 
most learned and most eminent of English Churchmen. 
“Suppose,” says Dean Inge, “that the state has exceeded 
it rights by prohibiting some harmless act, such as the 
consumption of alcohol. Is smuggling, in such a case, 


PROHIBITION 175 


morally justifiable? I should say Yes: the interference 
of the state in such matters is a mere impertinence.” ? 

Or if one crosses the Atlantic, he may find with in- 
creasing frequency expressions like these unanimously 
adopted by a recent Grand Jury in Kings County, New 
York, whose limits are identical with those of the com- 
munity which has long been known as the City of 
Churches. Referring to the existing laws for the enforce- 
ment of the Eighteenth Amendment, this Grand Jury 
expressed itself as follows: 

Whatever may be our individual ideas upon the subject of 
temperance and prohibition, we believe that there can be no 
doubt but that this law tends to debauch and corrupt the police 
force. It interferes with liberty and private life of moral, law- 
abiding citizens. It even goes so far as to brand good men 
felons, because in their own conscience they desire to indulge 
in personal habits in which they find no harm. It has not checked 
the misuse of intoxicating liquors, but it has seriously hampered 
their proper use. We feel that it can never be enforced, because 
it lays down rules of private conduct which are contrary to the 
intelligence and general morality of the community. It is an at- 
tempt by a body of our citizenship, thinking one way, to inter- 
fere with the private conduct of another body, thinking another 
way. ? 

These are not expressions of a spirit of lawlessness. 
They are a simple declaration of the fact that lawless- 
ness is certain to follow from some types of law. The 
answer which is made is instant and resounding. We 
are told that the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted 
in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution 
itself, and that its validity as an amendment has been 
affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. We are 
told then that all that those who disagree with its prin- 
ciples and purposes have to do is to accept defeat, to rec- 
ognize themselves as in the minority, and to obey the 
law. Perhaps this ought to be the case, but it is not, and 
I greatly doubt if it ever will be, at least within the 
lifetime of any man now living. The majority is not 

1By William Ralph Inge. Outspoken Essays: second series. New 


York, 1922, Dp; 134% 
2New York Globe. December 29, 1922. p. 2. 


176 SELECTED ARTICLES 


always right, nor is its verdict final. The Old Testament 
records a leading case in which four hundred and fifty 
prophets of Baal were worsted single-handed by the 
prophet Elijah, who had God and right on his side. Four 
hundred and fifty to one is a very unusual majority, but 
it‘ was not enough. 

As Abraham Lincoln pointed out in his argument 
against the finality of the decision of the United States 
Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, he was not vio- 
lating the law or urging its violation. He did not pro- 
pose to set Dred Scott free by force, in opposition to the 
court’s decision. What he did propose, however, was to 
agitate and to lead an agitation for such political action 
as would make impossible the conditions which had led 
the Supreme Court to make its decision in that particular 
case. Itis lawless openly to affront the law. It is not law- 
less to agitate for its modification or repeal. 

No one who is familiar with the practical workings of 
our political system would expect either the Fifteenth or 
the Eighteenth Amendment to be repealed within measur- 
able time. So far as one can see, therefore, we are shut 
up to the alternative of their attempted enforcement by 
soldiers and police and special agents and detectives and 
spies, or to their abrogation over a great part of the land 
by local initiative and common consent. Either alternative 
is humiliating and degrading. If our people have taken 
untenable and harmful positions in respect of securing 
suffrage for the colored man, and in respect of promoting 
the cause of temperance and total abstinence and in re- 
moving the abuse and the nuisance of the public bar, 
they should be willing to retrace those steps and start 
toward their wise and splendid goals by other and more 
practicable paths. I know of no one who dares to hope 
for any such fortunate outcome of the unhappy condi- 
tions that now confront us. 

Speaking for myself, I may say that my first political 
activity in my native state of New Jersey was in co- 


PROHIBITION 177 


operation with colored men and on their behalf, and in 
support of movements to restrict and to abolish the saloon 
or public bar. In my own congressional district there 
were large numbers of colored voters who were eager, 
intelligent, and public-spirited. To see colored men of 
that type participate freely in the public life of other 
districts and other states would be a great satisfaction. 
But it is now plain to me that the road which was taken 
to that end was a wrong road. It has delayed, not hast- 
ened, the political participation of the colored man in the 
public life of the United States. Similarly, it was my 
fortune, as a member of the Committee on Resolutions 
of the New Jersey State Republican Convention of 1886, 
to give the casting vote in favor of the platform declara- 
tion which declared war on the saloon. That platform 
declaration is supposed to have cost the Republican Party 
that election, but it was a sound and true declaration none 
the less. Later, in the state of New York, it was my 
lot to work vigorously with those who attempted to drive 
out the saloon by use of the power of taxation. There- 
fore, | am personally committed through many years of 
practical political action to the cause of universal suffrage 
and to the abolition of the saloon. Perhaps, for that very 
reason, I feel so strongly as I do the disastrous mistakes 
that have been made, and the evil consequences that have 
followed and are certain long to follow in the life of the 
people of the United States. Surely there can be no more 
distressing and no more disintegrating form of lawless- 
ness than that which arises from the resistance of intelli- 
gent and high-minded people, on grounds of morals and 
fundamental principle, to some particular provision of 
law. 

The American people must learn to think of these 
things, and to give up that unwillingness, which seems 
so characteristic, to discuss or to deal with the disputed 
and the disagreeable. We have almost gotten to a point 
where public men, and those who should be leaders of 


178 SELECTED VAR TICUES 


opinion, hesitate to speak until they know what others 
are likely to say, and how what they say will probably 
be received by the press and the public. There are not 
so many as there should be who are willing to take the 
risk of being unpopular for the sake of being right. 


VIGIOUS HR RECTS OF VDEID UPR © EIB irery 
ENFORCEMENT ACT 


The steady increase in crime and lawlessness in the 
United States has been the subject of grave consideration 
by the members of the American Bar Association. At 
the annual meetings of their members for the last two 
or three years this subject has been given the greatest 
possible emphasis. It has been shown repeatedly that 
the increase is out of proportion to our growth, and that 
there is a steady and growing disrespect for law. Our 
record of robberies, burglaries, and murders is a shame- 
ful one in comparison with any other civilized country. 
That there is a definite criminal class is recognized, 
though there is perhaps a tendency to exaggerate its pro- 
portions. The Department of Commerce reported a year 
ago that the total number of prisoners confined in Fed- 
eral penitentiaries, state prisons, county jails, state and 
county chain or road gangs, city police stations and other 
penal institutions on July 1, 1922, was 163,889, which is 
less than 4% of 1 per cent of all the people in the United 
States over fourteen years of age. The prison figures 
include those who are serving short terms for violating 
automobile laws and health laws, as well as moonshiners, 
bootleggers and “drunks.” Of course, the figures would 
be considerably larger if they included the roster of all 
persons who had passed in and out of county jails and 
city police stations during the year. 

Statistical comparisons, which are always apt to be 
misleading, have been particularly complicated by the 


1By Hugh F, Fox. Bulletin United States Brewers’ Association, 
January, 1924. 


PROHIBITION 179 


enforcement of the prohibition law. The Attorney-Gen- 
eral of the United States—Mr. Daugherty—reports that 
70 per cent of the Federal indictments during the past 
year were for liquor violations. Over forty-nine thou- 
sand criminal cases were commenced arising out of the 
prohibition law. The Department of Justice declares that 
liquor smuggling is the most gigantic criminal problem 
the United States ever faced. 

Judge William B. Swaney, chairman of the American 
Bar Association’s Special Commission on Law Enforce- 
ment, writing for Current History (September, 1922) de- 
clared that “the criminal element in this country numbers 
less than % of 1 per cent of the entire population.” He 
emphasized the fact that in crimes which indicate dis- 
honesty of the people, comparisons show that “the morals 
of the common people are better than those of any other 
great nation,’ and that Americans in the main are honest. 

When we speak of the “criminal class” we have in 
mind, broadly speaking, those who are guilty of crimes 
against property and crimes of premeditated violence. 
Such persons are not “accidental” criminals. They do 
not dispute that the law is “correct.” They know that 
dishonesty is wrong and there is no doubt in their minds 
as to the justice of their punishment if they get caught. 
The decalogue has just as much moral sanction in the 
minds of criminals as it has in the minds of innocent 
people. Prosecuting attorneys and police authorities do 
not find it necessary to employ press agents and put out 
propaganda to justify or defend their actions. We don’t 
hear of the Directors of the Mint tearing around to get 
people to stop counterfeiting, or the Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue straining his lungs to persuade us of 
the morality of taxation. The Attorney-General doesn’t 
have to waste any energy defending or extolling the penal 
code, or the Secretary of Commerce proclaim from the 
house-tops that business men must not be crooks. We 
don’t have to call on the Interstate Commerce Commis- 


180 SELECTED ARTICLES 


sioner to convince people that ladies and gentlemen 
mustn’t hold up trains and rob the passengers. These 
are matters of common acceptance; there is no more 
argument about them than there is about the Ten Com- 
mandments! 

The United States Prohibition Commissioner, how- 
ever, feels it necessary to devote a large amount of his 
time to preachment and propaganda, and the lady 
Assistant United States Attorney-General, Mrs. Mabel 
Willebrandt, who has charge of prohibition cases, has 
to make special trips from Washington to Minnesota 
and other places, to address conferences on the problem 
of prohibition enforcement. The burden of Mrs. Wille- 
brandt’s plea is for “‘a rebirth of local responsibility and 
a reshouldering of the local share of the load.” “The 
United States,” she truly says, “cannot police the back- 
yard of every citizen.’ From. this and much other testi- 
mony it is evident that the Federal authorities have at 
last come to realize the impossibility of forcing prohi- 
bition upon the people by Federal policemen. “The func- 
tion of the Federal government is to watch and police 
the sources of bootleg supply,” says Mrs. Willebrandt, 
especially smuggling from Canada and other countries. 
In other words, the prevention of moonshining, of illicit 
sale, of liquor transportation and “home-brew” are local 
problems which the states and municipalities must take 
care of! The Federal agents can do the preaching, which 
is comparatively cheap—but the practising, which is 
mighty expensive, is up to the taxpayers of the “home- 
towns.’ At the recent Minnesota prohibiton enforce- 
ment conference, which was presided over by S. V. 
Ovale, the Federal officer for that state, Mr. Qvale sug- 
gested that law enforcement committees be organized 
“in every village, town, city and county of the state to 
cooperate with the officers employed in the enforcement 
of prohibition.” Of course, no such gathering—or boil 
—would be complete without the adoption of a string 


PROHIBITION 181 


of resolutions among which was one destroying the illu- 
sion that prohibition has closed up all the jails, for it 
urged the establishment of additional county or district 
workhouses to which bootleggers could be sentenced to 
hard labor! The pearl of them all, however, was a reso- 
lution which called for a “deeper appreciation by all 
citizens of their ‘obligation’ to report prohibition vio- 
lators, condemn drinking and in general promote public 
sentiment in favor of prohibition enforcement.” Judg- 
ing from the press reports, the sanest note was struck 
by the county attorney of Hennepin County, Floyd B. 
Olson. Mr. Olson stressed the necessity of gaining re- 
spect for the law before its enforcement can be made 
certain. “It seems to me the fundamental question goes 
deeper than severe punishment,” he said. “Successful 
enforcement depends on civic conscience, on community 
conscience.” He cited the larceny statutes, based funda- 
mentally upon the Commandment: ‘Thou Shalt Not 
Steal,’ and declared that it can be enforced because there 
is public sentiment behind it. 

The able editor of the Wall Street Journal had a 
piece the other day about what is the soul of the law, 
the spirit which gives it life. ‘English common law,” 
he says, “had its basis in immemorial custom. It rep- 
resented the sum of a people’s practical experience in 
their relations with each other. It did not make legal 
offenses of what were not moral offenses. The citizen 
could be properly assumed to know the common law 
because he was assured that what was legally wrong was 
morally wrong. . . . Our fathers built a Constitution 
which had in it the soul of the law. It was not a matter 
of edicts or ordinances and still less of controverted opin- 
ion. . . . But when, by statute, we incorporate opinion, 
controverted by men of good life and high principle, as 
in the case of the Eighteenth Amendment, we violate 
the spirit of the law, and to that extent we weaken it. We 
put into the Constitution only a passing phase of public 


182 SELECTED ARTICLES 


opinion, of no more dignity or value than a city ordi- 
nance to regulate traffic at a given point. Obviously 
the fundamental law of the land ceases to that extent to 
be fundamental. . . . The motive in putting the prohi- 
bition amendment into the Constitution was to put a 
sumptuary edict, backed only by opinion, beyond the 
reach of repeal through an adroit use of the mechanics 
of legislation. But ‘we, the people of the United States,’ 
did ‘ordain’ the Constitution, and we can repeal it.” 

Why is it that the Volstead Act is so generally flouted 
and ridiculed? It isn’t only that the Atlantic Seaboard 
is against it. The transplanted Puritans of the prairie 
states are just as scornful about it as the denizens of 
the crowded eastern cities. 

Public sentiment, which vitalizes popular govern- 
ment, is not something that clamor can create. Adver- 
tising has performed miracles in creating new tastes. It 
has transformed a childish impulse to masticate and 
mumble food into a mighty hunger for chewing gum. It 
has put prunes on every breakfast table and made apples 
and raisins household necessities—but no amount of ad- 
vertising or press-agenting can destroy a taste which is 
common to every race and tribe, and which has thousands 
of years of family custom back of it. Nor can new sins 
be made by mere preachment. There must be some- 
thing inherently faulty in the Volstead Act itself. 

First, the workman has long believed that the cam- 
paign for national prohibition was financed by the em- 
ployer for the purpose of increasing output. In the 
language of the factory “it was done to exploit labor.” 
At first this was merely a suspicion, but the Anderson 
revelations in New York established the fact that the 
Rockefellers had secretly been heavy contributors to the 
Anti-Saloon League’s fund, and this was enough to justify 
in the worker’s mind all past suspicions and to breed a 
horde of new ones. So gravely philosophical a paper 
as the Villager assures the laborer that } 


PROHIBITION ; 183 


It was to make sure of industrial teetotalism that the coun- 
try now has prohibition. . . It was the industrial movement 
which made use of the moral movement, and so achieved the 
Eighteenth Amendment. 


Second, the laborer knows that rich men, including 
the factory owners and executives with whom he comes 
in contact, have not ceased to drink personally. Natur- 
ally, properly and with instinctive love of liberty, the 
worker resents the situation. However temperate his 
prior habits may have been, he is now denied one of 
his pleasures and relaxations. Further, he knows that 
nature herself has decreed that he who, pent in by brick 
walls, performs hard physical labor is refreshed by mild 
beverages. He feels a craving not for an intoxicant, 
but for a stimulant, and he knows that while this is 
denied him, the very employer who clandestinely paid 
to bring about this imposition is himself enjoying all 
his old liberties. Worse still, the poor man knows that 
when his wife or children are ill, they suffer or perhaps 
die for lack of that which is to the employer and his 
pocketbook a mere bootlegging transaction in cynical 
disregard of the law he helped to make. 


CONFISCATION 


To many, the employers seem to be singularly blind 
in their attitude toward some of the Volstead Act’s pro- 
visions. Surely that class of our citizens who should be 
most concerned to fight against laws confiscating private 
property is the employer class. Yet their law—the Vol- 
stead law—is a confiscating statute. A few years ago 
a barrel of whisky was private property; objectionable 
property if you will, but property none-the-less, manu- 
factured under government supervision, gauged, stamped 
and taxed by Federal officers. So, breweries and distil- 
leries and their contained machinery were private prop- 
erty, duly recognized and taxed. Then came forward 
people saying, “We do not approve that kind of prop- 


184 SELECTEDMARTICELS 


erty; we think it works harm to the people; and because 
we do not approve it, we demand that it be confiscated,” 
and in effect, confiscated it was. 

But there are many people in this country who do 
not approve accumulated or inherited fortunes, believing 
them to be harmful to the people; indeed, some of those 
among us do not approve any kind of private ownership. 
When the time comes that these classes demand confisca- 
tions to suit their beliefs, the employers will be in no 
position to turn to the working man for help in sustain- 
ing property rights; for the poor man may well reply, 
“No, it was you who made this precedent, and you made 
it for no good purpose, but with the intent to rob me 
of my hours of relaxation, so that you might get more 
work and more profit out of me.” | 

Employers should note that the factory poll taken by 
the Literary Digest, as well as the vote of the unions 
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, show in 
many trades a practical unanimity against Volsteadism. 

Let us at least open our eyes and see that the age- 
long fight between labor and capital has been intensified 
and embittered through national prohibition — and this 
to the danger of our country. 


DISRESPECT FOR LAW 


Another collateral result of Volsteadism—one utterly 
unexpected by the prohibitionists—is widely manifesting 
itself in disrespect’ for law, which has become so grave 
that President Harding called it the ‘most demoralizing 
factor” in our public life. 

The prohibitionists cry out that the people are wrong 
and should obey the law. ‘The people answer that it is 
the law which is wrong, and should be changed. Certain 
it is that either the law is wrong and should be changed 
or the people are wrong and should be changed. And 
the voters will sooner or later have to decide which of 
these jobs they will undertake. 


PROHIBITION 185 


Why this law should be held in such contempt by 
people who are otherwise law-abiding is still a matter 
of controversy. Some condemn it for one reason, some 
for another. A leading New England newspaper sees 
in the public’s attitude a warning that we should “begin 
a serious study of all laws which do not command pub- 
lic favor’ because in a Republic “a law which does not 
command public support 1s not a law—it is a form of 
tyranny.” 

One who studies the psychology of the subject is 
inevitably struck by the anomaly that while state prohi- 
bition laws were generally obeyed and respected, people 
seem to feel it a sort of duty to flout the Volstead Act. 
And inquiry quickly reveals at least one reason—a belief 
that the law was passed not by a man’s neighbors, who had 
an interest in him and his affairs, but by some one living 
at a distance, by strangers acting in a spirit of meddle- 
someness. The Marylander is quite willing to yield even 
respect and obedience to a law he believes oppressive, 
provided it was passed by his own people, but his innate 
sense of independence resents the effort of Kansans to 
impose a law on him through what he believes to be a 
smug piece of sanctimonious humbuggery. “If Kansans,” 
he says, “want prohibition and believe it good for their 
people, let them have it by all means; but why should 
Kansas meddle with Maryland? I am not forcing any- 
thing on her against her will and I’ll not have her force 
something on me.” 

No good can come from merely berating the public 
because a law is disobeyed. There are two sides to the 
subject. Undoubtedly there is an obligation on all of 
us to obey the law, but in a free country there is a cor- 
responding obligation on the part of the lawmaking bodies 
to enact only such measures as are fair and reasonable 
and will command the support of public opinion. Those 
lawmakers who foisted national prohibition upon us com- 
mitted the first and the great wrong, and upon them rests 
the responsibility for our present lawlessness, 


186 SELECTED WARTICEES 


Getting down to rock bottom. The reason why smug- 
gling, moonshining, bootlegging, and the illicit manufac- 
ture of intoxicating liquors flourishes in every nook and 
corner of the land is because of the popular demand for 
alcoholic beverages. The trade follows the flag’ into 
every hamlet. The Volstead Act is in disrespect because 
it has not registered itself from any standpoint which 
carries conviction to the minds of civilized people. It 
has indeed created disrespect, stimulated disaffection, and 
bred crime. Some day perhaps the people may tackle the 
Eighteenth Amendment itself, but the present task is to 
amend the Volstead Act so that it shall at least conform 
to the spirit and intent of that amendment. 

With the single exception of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment, every amendment to the Constitution has enlarged 
the field of human liberty. 

When the American people realize the ghastly failure 
that has attended the Anti-Saloon League’s brand of pro- 
hibition, they will adopt sane regulatory legislation, so 
drawn as to promote true temperance. 


SOME OR THE EVILS OF VOUSTRADISM: 


EFFECT UPON OuR GOVERNMENT 


First, is the effect upon our government —as dis- 
tinguished from the effects on individuals. President 
Harding recognized both the existence and the gravity 
of this danger when, recently, in a public speech he 
pointed out that the prohibitionists had “sought by law” 
to remove strong drink as a curse upon the American 
“citizen,” and then solemnly added that we must now 
recognize that the problem involves “a menace to the 
Republic itself.” 


1By W. H. Stayton. Annals of the American Academy. 109: 30-8. 
September, 1923. 


PROHIBITION 187 


The President may have differed from others as to 
the remedy to be applied, but he was alive to the danger ; 
and yet what shall it profit us if we reform the habits 
of some drunkards and lose the Republic? 

And what, specifically, is the danger? 

Probably, even on Thanksgiving Day, this generation 
has forgotten to render gratitude for the atmospheric 
oxygen on which our mortal lives depend and for the 
Constitution which is equally the source of our national 
existence. But let the oxygen supply be but briefly in- 
terrupted and there loom visions of the black hole of 
Calcutta. Like results will inevitably follow, nationally, 
if we abstract from the Constitution its vital principle. 
That Constitution, founded by the people of the several 
states, created for their purposes a piece of governmental 
machinery to be located in Washington. But that Fed- 
eral machine was to be the servant, not the master of the 
people. It was ordained to receive and obey instructions, 
not to say to its masters, “Thou shalt not!’ Today our 
former servant rules—arrogantly rules—in our house. 

Americans, thanks to the wisdom and determination 
of their forefathers, have been so prosperous and happy 
that they are slow to believe that serious governmental 
evils may come to them. Yet it is evident that in these 
days we are beginning to talk more of the Declaration 
of Independence and to reflect upon the similarity of 
our present situation and our ancestors’ complaint that 
the government had “erected a multitude of new offices 
and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people 
and eat out their substance.” 

Those who see in the Federal encroachments, growing 
out of national prohibition, a danger to the Republic it- 
self may well ponder on John Fiske’s warning: 


Tf the day should ever arrive (which, God forbid) when 
the people of the different parts of our country shall allow 
their local affairs to be administered by prefects sent out from 
Washington, and when the self-government of the states shall 
have been so far lost as that of the departments of France, 
or even so far as that of the counties of England—on that day 


188 SELECTED ARTICLES 


the progressive political career of the American people will have 
come to an end. 


The Federal government was created to deal with 
only those functions which could not well be handled 
by a single state. International affairs were a fit sub- 
ject for Federal power, as were such matters as inter- 
state commerce, affecting more than one state. But the 
very spirit of the Constitution was that each state should 
forever keep power over its local affairs. This spirit has 
been destroyed by the Eighteenth Amendment, under 
which the right of local self-government is torn from 
the individual states, whose people are made subject, 
even in the small routine affairs of their daily lives, to 
those living in far distant localities and under other 
conditions. 

And this brings us to a vital point, going to the very 
foundations of federations such as ours. A geographi- 
cally small country with a homogeneous population may 
endure sumptuary laws which are uniform through the 
land. But the United States, with its northermost point 
far up in the Arctic, stretches through the temperate 
zone, thence through the northern tropics, past the 
Equator and deep into the southern tropics, and from 
east to west we extend more than half way around the 
earth. We have become a huge country embracing vast 
climatic ranges, and including in the union people of 
divers origins, differing physically and in faiths, thoughts 
and habits. 

Obviously, to hold such dissimilar groups in happy 
combination, there must be the fullest practicable measure 
of local self-government and personal liberty, and there 
must be tolerance and toleration, a kindly national spirit 
of give and take. For any one sect or section to impose 
by force its sumptuary views, however worthy, upon those 
of different thought must necessarily lead to misunder- 
standings, setting class against class, and tend toward 


PROHIBITION 189 


disintegration. Cool-headed Americans can hardly fail 
to see today the operation of this tendency. 

Those dwelling in large cities and trying earnestly 
to solve the pressing problems of life under hive condi- 
tions feel that impracticable regulations have been forced 
upon them through the vote of those living in rural com- 
munities and happily unable to hear nature’s cry from 
the crowded tenement. Nor is the city man unaware 
that, while the Enforcement Division denies him even 
his mild beverages, yet it, relying upon the rural vote 
for support, has failed to issue like regulations for the 
country districts, and continues to permit the farmer 
to have his hard cider, his home-made wines and his 
fermented juices. Thus is enmity born between rural and 
urban brothers, and thoughtful citizens may well take 
heed now lest retaliations follow when comes the inevit- 
able day in which the city vote will be in the majority. 


POORt VSO RICH 


Even greater is that menace of Volsteadism which 
set the poor against the rich and gave the laborer a 
just cause of grievance against his employer. This an- 
tagonism rests on two facts, one having to do with the 
law’s origin and the other with its enforcement. 

One senator, in warning his colleagues of the folly of 
their proposed course said, “I do not think a prohibition 
amendment will be effective. You cannot make any law 
stronger than the public sentiment which sees to its en- 
forcement.” That senator was Warren G. Harding. 


OFFICIAL Hypocrisy 


The second obvious factor in creating the present 
state of contempt for and disobedience to the Volstead 
Act, is found in the public’s knowledge that those who 
drew the law and voted for its passage do not even 
pretend to obey it. The specific confession of such “drys” 


190 SELECTEDPARLICEES 


as Upshaw make it unnecessary to cite cases. People 
with ideas of liberty are not inclined to obey laws con- 
fessedly hypocritical and concededly passed by hypocrites. 
Indeed, the student cf government will find in this in- 
stance something graver than even hypocrisy. For our 
Federal officials, even those in very high places, do not 
hesitate to say, in effect, “Yes, I disregard the Volstead 
Act, for I am a gentleman and an educated man and I 
know how to drink and when to stop. The law was 
not really intended for such as we are, but for the other 
class of our people, and it is for their good to have it.” 
No man knows what may happen in a republic when those 
who make, administer and execute the laws have come 
to think of “their people” much ‘as ‘they do of) “their 
cattle.” Certainly this is not democracy, and certainly 
the “cattle” are going to continue their resentfulness and 
to work for a change. 


THE MisusEp SLOGAN OF “LAW AND ORDER” 


For a time it seemed that the Anti-Saloon League’s 
“Law and Order” slogan might be sufficiently potent to 
rally a majority of the people to support the law so long 
as it remained on the books. But when the conduct of 
the Anti-Saloon League’s officers brought them into con- 
tact with the law, they quickly showed such an evident 
intention of disobeying and fighting it that their insin- 
cerity was publicly manifest and the influence of their 
clever catch phrase melted away. Few men were willing 
to be longer duped by Anderson’s cry, “Respect the 
Law,’ when he himself and the clerical members of his 
Board were refusing to give information to the Grand 
Jury and the duly constituted legal authorities of the 
state. Then, when in New York the Anti-Saloon League 
failed to promptly and frankly obey the court’s order to 
file its accounts of receipts and expenditures, the mask 
of hypocrisy was quite torn off; and, unhappily for 


PROHIBITION 191 


those who believe that all laws should be obeyed, there 
was at once a reaction on the part of the deceived. It 
is unfortunate, but it is inevitable, that if those who 
lead a reform movement lose the respect of their fol- 
lowers, there will come a tidal turn which will injure 
the movement regardless of its merits. 

Before there can again be proper respect for law 
in this country, the authorities and the Anti-Saloon 
League must show some of such respect. At present 
they are setting the example of disregarding all laws 
and decisions which do not meet their approval. The 
“Search and Seizure” laws are notoriously disobeyed by 
those sworn to enforce them and to protect public rights. 
Two Federal judges have decided that the regulations 
restricting doctors in their prescriptions are unlawful, 
yet the authorities tyrannically refuse to yield obedience 
and continue to violate their oaths and oppress the poor 
and sick. 


REAL TEMPERANCE Has BEEN Set BACK 


It will be remembered that President Harding, who 
had definitely assumed the leadership of the National 
Prohibition Party, described the “dry” program as an 
effort to remove “strong” drink. Yet, oddly enough, 
these very people, in their zeal, went so far beyond the 
proper limit as to defeat their own purpose. Doubtless 
the President was right in interpreting public opinion 
as hostile to strong (rather than mild) beverages, and 
as recognizing the fact that the first step toward real 
temperance should be the substitution of mild beverages 
in place of spirits. And this very public opinion had, in 
the course of recent history, brought about a steady and 
important growth in this substitution. 

In 1850, for example, the national per capita con- 
sumption of distilled spirits was two and one-quarter 
gallons; by 1900 it had shrunk to one and one-quarter 


192 SELECTED ARTICLES 


gallons; and in 1919 it was down to three-quarters of 
a gallon. Malt liquors were increasingly used as sub- 
stitutes. The actual amount of alcohol consumed (per 
capita) remained substantially constant, but it was taken, 
progressively, increasingly diluted and in less harmful 
forms. 

This at least meant that drunkenness and alcoholic 
excesses were becoming less and less prevalent; and, in 
this respect, popular observation confirmed the story told 
by statistics. All observant Americans more than fifty 
years of age had, up to 1920, noticed a marked national 
change in the direction of sobriety. 

But with the coming of national prohibition, that 
tendency was reversed. Malt liquors were too bulky for 
the bootlegger, and the country has given up its cock- 
tails and gone back to strong drink taken “straight.” 
Even women and girls drink from the bottle. 

The drinking of beer is not, of course, abstinence, but 
it certainly is not in conflict with real temperance; and, 
however good the motive, those who drive a people from 
mild to strong drinks injure the cause of temperance. 

To this, the prohibitionists reply “the responsibility 
for this state of affairs rests not on us, but on those who 
drink in violation of law.” 

Not so. Formerly, a man had, and realized that he 
had, the right of self-determination as to drink. He was 
free to take it or refuse it. The moral responsibility and 
the right of choice were the individual’s. Now he has 
been deprived of the right of choice. Someone else— 
the lawmakers—have assumed the responsibility for de- 
ciding as to the individual’s conduct. None can fail to 
understand the psychology (and the danger) in the reply 
of a half-inebriated clubman who recently, rejecting a 
suggestion that he stop drinking and sober up answered, 
“Speak to the enforcement officer about it; it’s his job 
to stop all drinking and I assume none of the respon- 
sibility.” 


PROHIBITION 193 


In these unforseen ways, the national prohibition law 
has set back real prohibition for at least a generation. 
Indeed, it may develop that the children of this genera- 
tion will drink more than did their grandfathers, for 
today, in many homes, the little boys and girls (just at 
the imitative age) watch their parents in the home brew- 
ing, and know to a nicety the proportions of raisins, 
sugar, etc., called for by the favorite recipes. 


Our INTERNATIONAL STANDING 


One of the great disappointments—one may even say 
“shocks” —of national prohibition has been its effect 
on our international reputation. However much a certain 
class of speakers may boast as to our national omnip- 
otence and self-complacency, it remains the fact that with 
nations, as with women and men, the respect, friendship 
and good-will of one’s neighbors and associates is a prec- 
ious treasure. Indeed, this is more important in the case 
of countries than of individuals, for the very peace of 
the world and the ending of wars depend on international 
faith and respect. | 

Did any nation ever stand higher in the world’s re- 
spect than we stood at the end of 1918? The other na- 
tions said that we had saved their very lives, and they 
believed us generous and altruistic. 

Why have they cooled and fallen away? 

Some say it has to do with debts, but that, while 
perhaps having some effect, is not the whole truth. Pro- 
hibition hypocrisy is in great part to blame. 

Frequently one can better judge the conduct of a 
nation by reducing it to its simple terms and comparing 
it to the behavior of an individual. Suppose, then, that 
some man had saved your life at the risk of his own, 
and having in your moment of despair, treated you with 
unparalleled generosity, and having freely given the lives 
of his sons that yours might survive, he should after- 
wards differ from you concerning a monetary obligation. 


104 SEEEOTED sAnTIGIES 


Could that, by any possibility, make you forget his sacri- 
fices and his worth and turn against him and his? Surely 
not. 

But if that man should afterwards do something 
hypocritical and dishonest, and if he should arrogantly 
claim the right to regulate your private affairs, and if 
he should show a willingness to abandon his chosen 
moral code when there was money to be made from 
the abandonment, then, in sadness, you might turn from 
him. A calm consideration of the facts will show that 
our officials have so acted in prohibition matters as to 
put the nation in just such an unfavorable light; and 
our friends have turned their faces because they hold 
us, as citizens, responsible for the acts of our government. 

First, we declared ourselves to be a nation of pro- 
hibitionists ; we tooted our moral horn somewhat loudly; 
then we sent our leading pussyfooters to persuade the 
wicked nations to adopt our high standard of morals,— 
this with more horn tooting. These acts were received 
abroad with some misgivings but with general respect, 
and certainly with a belief in our sincerity. 

But suddenly, we found that our national pocketbook 
was being touched; we—that is the taxpayers—owned 
ships and carried passengers on the high seas. Passen- 
gers wanted to drink and were ready to pay for the 
privilege, so our upturned eyes were closed to the law 
and to all of our self-righteous protestations, and we 
went—as a nation—into the business of “keeping bar” 
on board our ships for profit. But we didn’t adopt the 
method of the crusader conscious of the rectitude of his 
course; we didn’t openly admit at home that we had 
gone into the liquor traffic (after all that we had said 
against it); we didn’t openly advertise in this country, 
but ran our ship-bars on the confidential lines of our 
well-known national institution—the “Speak-Easy.” And 
when we were caught at the game and stopped—with 
much official weeping—our foreign friends naturally be- 


PROHIBITION 195 


gan to doubt our sincerity, to wonder whether we were 
really as much better than they as we claimed to be. 

Then leading foreign officials coming to this country 
in connection with postwar adjustments, four-power con- 
ferences, etc., were entertained in Washington, officially 
and privately, in the presence of our great men of the 
legislative, executive and judicial departments. The 
guests were amazed to learn that between practice and 
our preaching there stretched the broad gulf of national 
hypocrisy. Our visitors saw the things of which Upshaw 
threatened to speak, and they carried the truth back 
to their homes. 

Next came the question of liquor on foreign ships 
casually visiting our shores. Our foreign friends believe, 
as most Americans believe, that the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment was intended to apply only to the United States, 
and was not designed to interfere either directly or in- 
directly with a foreigner’s life and habits on the high 
seas under his own flag. But our officials would not 
have it so; in vain did the foreigner plead that what 
liquor he had on board his ship under seal could not be 
used for “beverage purposes within the United States.” 
We would not listen. With attitude of high resolve and 
stern morality, our officials said to all the wicked out- 
side world, “No, rum is a curse, it shall not enter our 
waters.” And then, to what we may well believe was 
the amazement of the wicked, these same officials added ; 
“At least you shall not bring that rum into our ports 
where we can’t collect any tribute from it; but of course 
if you want to take it through our waters at Panama, 
why we’re ready to let you pass, for we have some mil- 
lions of dollars in tolls at stake there and can’t afford 
to let our piety stand in the way of profit.” 

So the foreigner—why shouldn't he—has come to 
think of us as hypocrites. All—or at least much—of 
that splendid good-will and affection won by the work, 
sacrifice and devotion of our women and the blood of 


196 SELECTED ARTICLES 


our young men in the dark days of 1917 and 1918 have 
been frittered away. 

Prohibition has brought in its train the loss of 
America’s precious good name and has diminished her 
influence for peace on earth, good-will to men. In the 
language of the Boston Herald (generally a supporter of 
national prohibition) : “Whatever one’s views are regard- 
ing prohibition, we ought as a people not to make our- 
selves ridiculous. We ought not to be a swaggerer among 
the nations.” 

And well might President Harding point out our 
present course as bringing “disrespect upon our coun- 
try” and as one to “be pointed to as justifying the charge 
that we are a nation of hypocrites.” 


THE CHURCH ING POLITICS 


Probably all agree, at least theoretically, that liberty 
is endangered when the church and the state form a 
partnership. 

In this country there has been determined hostility to 
the Catholics, founded on a belief that their priests and 
churches mixed in politics. The Protestant churches have 
claimed clean hands in the matter. But national prohibi- 
tion has done away with this state of affairs. The Anti- 
Saloon League sends its agents and collectors into the 
churches of the younger Protestant denominations. These 
congregations open their pulpits to the league’s agent and 
join with him in splitting commissions on the collection. 
The league advertises itself as “The Church in Action” 
and the churches acquiesce. 

But the Anti-Saloon League is a political organiza- 
tion. Not only is this obvious to all open-eyed men, but 
the Supreme Court of New York has so decided. Yet 
these Protestant churches continue their participation in 
the partnership. 

The precedent is at least dangerous. It may or may 
not be true, that the Catholics have heretofore offended 


PROHIBITION 197 


in this particular. Certainly they have now a vicious 
precedent ready for use. They may choose to go into 
politics. Some sects have succeeded in working into 
our national statutes one clause from their book of church 
discipline. Similar efforts may be made hereafter. The 
Catholics and the denominations now really opposed to 
mixing affairs of church and state may be forced to 
enter politics as a matter of self-protection, and, whether 
they go in from choice or necessity, the result will be 
evil and the blame must be laid at the door of the 
Protestant prohibitionists. 


PROHIBITION’S EFFECT ON INDUSTRY 


As to the great desirability of stopping the evils flow- 
ing from alcoholic excesses, all were in accord. Differ- 
ences of opinion existed solely as to the wisdom and 
efficacy of the proposed remedies. If prohibition had 
brought no accompanying evils, and had proved efficaci- 
ous to the point of accomplishing half the good predicted 
for it, none would regret the monetary cost nor cavil at 
the industrial damage done. But when prohibition laws 
fail, as they have failed, to bring either prohibition or 
sobriety, and when they father a horde of calamities, one 
may fairly count the financial figures. For a moral suc- 
cess, nothing that we pay is too much, but for a moral 
failure, anything we pay is too much. 

We are paying enormously—with threats of more to 
come. Taxes—national, state and municipal—are being 
sacrificed to the extent of a billion dollars per year, and 
bootleggers get the money that should go to reduce tax- 
burdens. Millions are being spent on an enforcement 
division, and now they say that we must pay one hundred 
millions for an addition needed in New York alone. 
About one hundred and forty-six thousand men have 
been thrown out of employment in this country and their 
work is now performed by foreigners abroad who are 
making and smuggling into the United States the bever- 
ages formerly made here. 


198 SELL OTEDGAKIICLEES 


If the illegitimate drinks now being sold in this coun- 
try were replaced by home manufacture, or if they paid 
legitimate duties, we would need no income tax law. 

If the five million acres formerly given over to the 
raising of barley for non-intoxicating cereal beverages, 
now prohibited by the Volstead Act, were again put to 
their former use, every farmer would get a fairer price 
for his wheat and corn. 


OTHER EVILS 


The subjects here discussed by no means exhaust the 
list of indictments against national prohibition. Increase 
in crimes of violence, congestion in the courts, sale and 
use of narcotics, violations of civil service principles, 
prostitution of public bureaus to political ends, bribery 
and corruption among officials, growth of insanity and 
blindness, the degradation of the automobile, and the in- 
sidious moral dangers to which maidens and youths are 
subjected, all deserve more lengthy treatment than can 
here be given them. 

Against these we must weigh whatever benefits these 
laws and conditions have brought, not neglecting what 
seems likely to be the one lasting blessing for which we 
nust give thanks to the prohibitionist,—that is an aroused 
public opinion as to the wisdom of the Fathers and the 
national necessity of returning to the paths they blazed 
in the great Constitution they devised for us. Too long 
we had neglected it, but now that violent hands have 
been laid on it, we realize that one sure way to destroy 
the precious document is to load it down with unenforce- 
able provisions. Our eyes begin to see again, the states 
begin to resist unwarranted aggressions, and women and 
men are aroused to a new individuality and have a larger 
sense of tolerant liberty which promises to bring back 
to the nation even more than was lost through our negli- 
gent good nature. 


PROHIBITION 199 


WHY DOES NOT PROHIBITION 
PROHIBER ts 


Is the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution, 
enforced through the Volstead Act, supported by the vari- 
ous and individual state acts of enforcement, successful 
today in solving the intoxicating beverage problem? I 
have asked myself this question and have kept my ear to 
the ground, like the farmer who comes to town to learn 
the news, and I still hestitate to reach a conclusion. Pro- 
hibition has solved the problem for those who have gone 
the wood alcohol route, the synthetic gin route, the 
poisoned whiskey route. These lives have paid a dear 
price and as a man I pity their untimely ending. I am 
not heartless enough, to think even for a moment, that 
they deserved their fate because they violated this law. 
No! A thousand times NO. We Americans have so 
many laws that it is impossible not to break one almost 
daily. If you drive an automobile you violate the law 
time and again. In the same manner, if we prohibit, by 
statute, “the manufacture, sale or transportation of in- 
toxicating liquors,” we make a law that, through legal 
interpretation is impossible not to break. [sic] 

The Eighteenth Amendment reads: 

The manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating 
liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation 
thereof from the United States, and all territory subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. 
The language is simple, but far from plain. 

It would appear that it was the intention of the framers 
of this statute [sic] to prohibit intoxicating liquors for 
beverage purposes in the United States. If one has ever 
attempted to write law, or to state in a few words some- 
thing that affected a great many people, he will find that 
English is at best a difficult and trying language. Our 
foreign friends ask, What do you mean? They learn our 


1 By Dr. S. Dana Hubbard. New York Medical Journal. 118: 108-11. 
July 18, 1923. 


200 SELECTED VAR TICLES 


language from tutors and books and then come here and 
find that neither can they make themselves understood 
nor can they understand us. In thinking one’s way through 
the prohibition problem one must be careful, cool and 
considerate. Nowhere is the judicial calm more necessary. 

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution is 
enforced by a Federal law known popularly as the Vol- 
stead law. The law was enacted by the process pre- 
scribed by the Constitution. No referendum was taken 
for the reason that no referendum is provided for by the 
Constitution. This amendment was adopted in precisely 
the same way in which the previous seventeen amend- 
ments were adopted. 

So much for legal regularity. 

Some people say “they put one over on us,’ another 
says “I had no voice in the making of this law and so I 
do not have to stand for it.” Now my friends, all of you 
who can read, know that this law was debated as early 
as 1913, when in Columbus, Ohio, a movement was 
launched in behalf of national prohibition. All through 
1915 and 1916 this subject was debated in church and 
platform [sic] throughout this country from every point 
of the compass and almost continuously discussed by the 
press. 


P 


HISTORICAL FACTS 


About fifty-three years ago the Prohibition Party was 
formed. About forty-nine years ago the W.C.T.U. was 
organized. It was about twenty-nine years ago that the 
Anti-Saloon League began its work. The state of Maine 
adopted prohibition in 1851, Kansas in 1880, North Da- 
kota in 1889, and Georgia in 1907. By their own acts 
thirty-three states voted prohibition as a state policy be- 
fore national prohibition was adopted. Before prohibition 
was nationally adopted the balance of fifteen states saw 
an added ten join these ranks. In 1918 there were 3,030 
counties in the United States and of these 2,392 had voted 
“dry”! These records no doubt show to any open mind 


PROHIBITION 201 


what a good many of our voters actually think on this 
question from a political point of view. 


How Was Tuts AMENDMENT ACHIEVED 


This is an important question, because it is by know- 
ing “when and why” it is expected to determine what part 
of our people are behind this regulation. 

The resolution submitting the amendment to the states 
was passed by the United States Senate on August 1, 
1917, and by the House on December 17, 1917. The Sen- 
ate voted sixty-five to twenty; the house voted two hun- 
dred eighty-two to one hundred twenty-eight. Forty-six 
of the forty-eight states have now ratified the amendment. 
In forty-five state legislatures the total vote for ratifica- 
tion was twelve hundred eighty-eight for to two hundred 
thirteen against in senates, while in the houses the vote 
for was thirty-seven hundred thirty-nine to nine hundred 
thirty-four against. Thirty-six legislatures are required 
for ratification. 

So much for the economics [sic] of the situation. 
Now for the civics. Who did this? There are those who 
have analyzed the situation and are of the opinion that 
it was as usual, “the intelligent minority,’ who through 
publicity and money put it over. Who are the intelligent 
minority? If reading puts light on this subject I would 
indict all men and women behind big business. This 
includes life insurance interests, scientists, philanthro- 
pists, college men, physicians, teachers, public health of- 
ficials, welfare workers, railway interests, mining inter- 
ests, many important industrial groups, and lastly our 
churches and their allied helpers. Such are the facts as 
given in our statistics, our press, and our class [sic] jour- 
nals. Informed and intelligent persons, believing in a 
democracy, a government “for, of, and by the people,” 
[sic] know that what can be made legal by a due process, 
if a mistake has been made, can be amended or repealed, 
if necessary, to meet the wishes of the majority of those 
governed. 


202 SELECTED ARTICLES 


ASPECTS OF THE PRESENT DAy LIQUOR PROBLEM 


As a preface to this consideration, we will refer to 
our text “Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit,’ because, 
in our experience, statistically and circumstantially, here 
and elsewhere, in this country, my conclusion is that so 
far prohibition has not prohibited and I am desirous of 
learning the reason why. 

Will national prohibition prevent alcoholic indulgence? 
The answer is probably best given by asking if state pro- 
hibition has stopped alcoholic indulgence? We have 
shown here that prohibition has been on trial since 1851, 
and that thirty-three states voted prohibition before the 
adoption of national prohibition. What have been the 
consequences ? 

Prefacing our argument, let us be fair and state that 
as yet the machinery of enforcement and the education 
of the people have not been adjusted to this novel re- 
quirement. Men with will-power and brains correct and 
check bad habits as early as indications show that such 
practice is bad. Others do not lend themselves to cor- 
rection so quickly. The feebleminded person has will- 
power materially impaired and cannot break evil or vici- 
ous habits. The saloon has been closed. The beer and 
whisky signs have been painted over. But we are in- 
formed that though the statute is on the books, and there 
are some officials trying to enforce the statute, and some 
courts are puzzling over interpretations of the language, 
anyone anywhere who has the price and knows “the 
ropes’’—because it is not done openly—can get liquor. 
This I am sorry to have to state publicity is also the 
national situation. The statistics of enforcement clearly 
demonstrate that liquor can be had today, three years 
after the initiation of this regulation. 

The national government operates on a fiscal year, 
July Ist to July Ist. Today, the newspapers inform us 
that there are pending 68,562 prohibition cases in the 
Federal courts alone. In addition there are many more 


PROHIBITION 203 


thousands of cases in state and municipal courts. Com- 
parison of annual reports show heavy increases of such 
cases instead of a reduction, which would be the reaction 
if the public were inclined to cooperate with this regu- 
lation. If this proportion continues, “it will be—as one 
of our wits, recently remarked—more fashionable to be 
on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in.” 
(Meaning of course a jail.) 

The prohibition bureau turned into the treasury a 
total of $4,804,271.95 for fines collected in a year ; 35,469 
persons have been indicted for violation of this act. Such 
wholesale deviations from the spirit and intent of this 
regulation are not indicative of cordial cooperation. 

The experience of the Department of Health is shown 
in the following table: 


REPORTED DEATHS FROM ALCOHOLISM 
Wood Acute Alcohol 


Year Alcoholism Alcoholism Poisoning Total 
LO LO maa ee ihe: 621 6 8 635 
TOSI ea oe ee 636 6 2 644 
TOT ore ume: CeO 4 3 577 
BOTS oie ete acces 656 3 2 661 
LOD Arersel ate ests 660 5 O 665 
POLS ep eae ecles 562 I 2 565 
TOG seat oes 687 2 I 690 
TG Bde earn, ie 560 8 Pe 570 
TOT Quer nctns sis 252 4 I 257 
TOTOL PO 176 38 I 1215 
LOCO ere kes ts 08 20 O 127 
TOLTAAM ate eh 119 14 8 141 
TO22 7 eet ee O72 15 8 295 





Interpretation—The yearly experience total shows a 
gradual reduction with occasional increases. In 1918 
the year prior to the prohibiting amendment was the best 
of the series. In 1919 and 1920 the reductions were at- 
tributed to the amendment. The sharp rise in 1922 is 
disquieting. This total is actually greater than that of 
1918 prior to national prohibition. The totals for wood 
alcohol indicts prohibition as not in a single prior year 


1 The first year of national prohibition. 


204 SELECTED ARTICLES 


was there an approximation of such an experience as 
was had in any of the years of prohibition. 

The following table gives the number of adniissions 
of cases of alcoholism in the city hospitals. 


Bellevue Kings County 
Year Hospital Hospital Total 
IOTOtee eee. es 728 1,030 1,758 
TOLQ i eater, 623 730 1,359 
TOZ0 eee ree 390 651 1,141 
LOZ Meroe see 2,503 842 3,345 
TOZ Ne oon yes 4,083 . 1,541 5,624 


The Commissioner of Health sent out a questionnaire 
to every hospital in New York city asking for a report 
on the number of admissions to their wards for the pre- 
vious five years where a diagnosis of alcoholism had 
been made on any patient. Twenty-nine hospitals re- 
sponded, reporting as follows: 


Year Total 

TOL OB Wiecaridcharctete en etn oerarne tae 5,710 

TOO Meee cee ee eee es 4,877 

TO2O pan nen me Get aera are 3,041 

TOOT ceo eu hints oe ree 4,33 

TOS 2 Mr eles eg ais ee yataignnere 6,868 Aggregate 25,9034 


The figures show an increase in the number of cases 
of alcoholism in all the institutions specified of 50 per 
cent over the figures for 1921, more than 70 per cent 
over 1920: 40 per cent over 1919 and 20 per cent over 
1918. 

The total arrests for drunkenness reported by Police 
Commissioner in New York, are as follows: 


IQIG jo si 6c pea tlalade ene ee ere ere Sate bier a Riera 5,323 
LQIO (oF creates Meat eiee Mere ttre oa Ste eae ag 5,562 
LO2O 4 eed a ears lean 8 ti! eS Ch a 5,930 
O75 OL TRE: PAS EN ES SARS 4. le dep A ng BURRS fon RIS 6,237 
1922 ie she eaten Cele pen UEP eel ety 5 cycle ha otee epee 7,8 


This five year period shows that the lowest number 
reported by the police commissioner was in the year prior 
to prohibition. Since this period there has been an 


> 


PROHIBITION 205 


ascending amount year by year. The year 1922 showing 
a 47 per cent increase over 1918. 


Wuat Is THE ATTITUDE OF THE MEDICAL 
PROFESSION 


Medical men have been sorely tried by this regu- 
lation. A cursory reading of the amendment, one would 
think, would show that the manufacture, sale or trans- 
portation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, 
was not in any way connected with the healing art. How, 
and by what argument, public officials interpreted this 
law to apply to the practice of medicine is beyond my 
powers of comprehension. But they have, and have 
established the most complex and time consuming regu- 
lations regarding medicine and alcohol that is annoying, 
interfering, and preventing proper practice. The largest 
group of physicians—the American Medical Association 
—through its house of delegates went on record relating 
to the attitude of medicine in reference to alcohol and 
healing. Later a questionnaire sent to a large number 
of doctors in active practice showed by a small majority, 
51 per cent to 49 per cent that physicians considered 
whisky a necessary therapeutic remedy. We are in- 
formed by the press through the director of prohibition 
that in New York state there were twelve thousand 
five hundred physicians holding permits to prescribe 
whisky in 1921. There were fifteen thousand six hun- 
dred two doctors duly registered in this territory at 
this time. During this period 20 per cent of the pre- 
scription blanks furnished physicians for prescribing al- 
cohol for the sick were used. This is an average of 
seventy-six prescriptions for alcohol out of an allottment 
of four hundred a year for each doctor. 

This is an eloquent reply to the question of medical 
cooperation in the face of the most bedeviling regula- 
tions. Physicians as a class dislike and oppose anything 
that restricts their best intentions in the treatment of 


206 SUE CUED tate ie bis 


their patients, and they nevertheless are in duty bound 
to encourage and aid in the proper enforcement of all 
laws. 


BoOTLEGGING, ILLicir IMPORTATION AND SALE 


The Eighteenth Amendment has occasioned a vast 
army of illict traders in alcoholic beverages, perhaps the 
greatest in history. If personal experience is an indica- 
tion of the vastness of the extent, it may be multiplied 
in imagination ad lb. England charges a tax of $2 on 
each gallon of liquor exported. The press informs us 
that there was exported to the Bahamas one million, two 
hundred thousand gallons last year. Recently there was 
arrested a man known as the king of the bootleggers. It 
was openly stated that this alien, of a few years’ resi- 
dence had amassed a fortune of several millions. A 
bootblack in a village on Long Island, openly exposed in 
a barber shop sixteen one thousand dollar bills. Grapes 
which formerly went into grape juice—the unfermented 
kind—sold in the market for $75 a ton. Last season 
grapes brought as high as $350 a ton. 

Instead of public house—saloon—indulgence today 
we have home drinking. There has been noticed in many 
localities an increase in school absentees, in cases of in- 
corrigibility, and a marked increase in drinking and hip 
toting among young people, who evidently think it smart. 
It is well known that children are great imitators and 
have the habit of mimicking their elders, and these inno- 
cent little ones think this drinking is mannish and smart. 
Sad to relate, immoderate indulgence by the youthful 
leads to many unpleasant conditions. Promiscuous rela- 
tions are embarrassing and our officials report an increas- 
ing number of children born out of wedlock. 

And so on and on ad infinitum, but these reactions 
are to be expected under present unfortunate conditions 
which have been brought about by opposition to this 
amendment. The naturalist and trainer knows that to 


PROHIBITION 207 


accomplish anything in training animals, a little progress 
should be made, time after time. Now the prohibitionist 
could not stand for abolishing hard liquor or taxing it 
out of existence, but extremist that he is, takes his un- 
pleasant medicine all at one gulp, with the natural re- 
action that an unprepared stomach rejects an overdose. 
The public would have no doubt stood for partial regu- 
lation, but an absolute annihilation was attempted, and 
instead of the result desired by all intelligent and think- 
ing individuals, opposition and abuse were the result. 
Not only opposition and abuse of this one act but promi- 
nent men, the press, in lecture and in news, inform us 
that all law is brought into disrepute. Crime is certainly 
on the increase. 

A final indictment, in this locality at least, is that pro- 
hibition appears to have shifted a normal 95 per cent 
beer drinking population to a hard liquor group. May 
we not here ask, if this is permitted to continue, what 
will be the effect on our public health? 


Wuy Does PROHIBITION BY STATUTE FAIL 
To So_tveE THis PROBLEM ? 


Governments cannot improve man. It is the task of 
man to improve governments. Every attempt to improve 
morality by law is productive of disorder. Temperance 
cannot be made possible by statute. Temperance cannot 
be bought. Legislation often fails. Education never 
does. There is one safe, sure way to make progress, 
moral progress at least, and that is, through the hearts 
of informed men and women. Perfection is a priceless 
possession and good conduct is the characteristic of the 
intelligent. Dr. Brookfield, an ardent advocate of temper- 
ance in England, remarked on this subject in 1841—it was 
true then, it is true today—‘‘Temperance, you know, is 
not abstemiousness (prohibition) but well proportioned 
use of things.” 


208 SELECTED) ARTICLES 


The one simple fact is positive—legislation covering 
drinking of intoxicating beverages is not going to be re- 
spected and public statute is helpful in government only 
so far as it is respected and willingly supported by public 
opinion and absolutely no further. 


CONCLUSIONS 


State wide prohibition has not prohibited and national 
prohibition is also for this one reason doomed to failure. 
America is a temperate, intelligent nation and has fought 
for and loved freedom. Prohibition by statute annihil- 
ates personal liberty. 

Prohibition fails because the United States is bounded 
on the north by hard liquor, on the south by liquor, on 
the west by rum and on the east by no limit. 

It may well be doubted whether there is or has been 
at any time a state in the union in which a majority 
of the voting population were abstainers or even be- 
lievers in prohibition as applied to themselves. 

Those wanting a drink, will get it, law or no law. 
The man too lazy to attend church just around the cor- 
ner will walk five miles to keep a date with his boot- 
legger. 

We have at best but imperfect means of measuring 
the effect of alcohol on man but prohibition meets its 
crucial test in asylums, hospitals, prisons, police courts, 
almshouses, and vital statistics. 

The story may not be as plain as the handwriting 
on the wall but it is written and those intelligent enough 
to read and reflect know the verdict. 

The net result of study so far of this momentous 
question is that prohibition by statute is not productive 
of that reaction which most of us desire when we legis- 
late in behalf of betterment of our fellowman. The law, 
then, is not the answer. Regulation by statute, if it is 
not too reactionary may help but when we consider our 
people as compared by their intelligence quotient with 
other nations a better plan would have been education. 


PROHIBITION 209 . 


The normal man will never become a drunkard. 

The vast majority of our people, 95 per cent are 
of this type of manhood. The man with the “squint 
brain” is the potential dipsomaniac, and once the habit 
is acquired will go through fire and water, in any 
weather, to get his drink. Let the recognition then be- 
tween the normal and the abnormal person guide us in 
our reforms. 

Men with unstable or enfeebled intellects are abso- 
lutely powerless to resist the impulse to drink. The pos- 
sible reform that lies nearest to success looks to the right 
treatment of individuals who are victims of the lust for 
alcohol. 


How May a COMMUNITY PREVENT POTENTIAL 
DRUNKARDS? 


As a first consideration there must be personal health 
in order to have good public health. Health is not the 
effect of a desire; it is won by effort. He who would 
_ have health must work for it; wishing will not achieve 

it. Health is not something that can be bought at the 
store nor made at the shop. Health must be thought of 
as an end and as a means for the accomplishment of that 
which is worth while in life. We can and do often 
prevent disease. Our vital statistics prove this beyond 
argument. Diseases, like tuberculosis and syphilis, which 
cause degeneration of race stock, must be prevented; 
when existent, they must be controlled. Our race stock 
has been made by immigration. It can be improved by 
careful supervision of further immigration and the 
elimination of the mental and physically unfit. 

We must shield the adolescent from alcohol in every 
form. We must provide substitutes for the “poor man’s 
club,” the corner hang out, the club, the saloon, the den. 
We must develop community interests that add to health, 
comfort and welfare. There must be prompt, suitable, 
and adequate punishment to evildoers. 

To me, personally, the incidents indicative of the evil 


210 SELECTED TARTICLES 


consequences of statutory regulation of indulgence in 
alcohol is but a natural sequence. It was almost pro- 
phetic. The committee of fifty scientists reported as an 
estimate of the percentage of different kinds of indul- 
gers in our population as follows: Abstainers, 20 per 
cent ; indulge to excess, 5 per cent; moderate 50 per cent; 
social, 25 per cent. 


WHat PROHIBITION Has DONE 


1. Prohibition has increased enormously the deaths 
trom wood alcohol. 

2. Prohibition has increased admission to general 
hospitals of cases of alcoholism. 

3. Prohibition has made men switch from _ beer 
drinking to hard liquor. 

4. Prohibition has increased alcoholism in the two 
alcohol services of our two hospitals. 

5. Prohibition has closed the saloon but has made 
home brewing and occasioned home drinking. 

6. Prohibition has increased the wholesale price of 
grapes, rich in phosphates and vitamines, beyond the 
price for average home consumption. 

7. Prohibition has increased the number of arrests 
tor drunkenness. 

8. Prohibition has brought about wholesale disre- 
spect for law. 

9. Prohibition has caused poisonous death dealing 
drinks to be made and sold promiscuously. 

10. Prohibition has increased alcoholic indulgence 
by the adolescent male and female. 

11. Prohibition has brought about wholesale boot- 
legging and illicit peddling of impure liquors. 

12. Prohibition has brought an increase in the manu- 
facture of spurious money. 

13. Prohibition has brought about “speak easies” 
for the sale clandestinely of liquor. 

14. Prohibition has many sins, social and hygienic 
to account for. 


PROHIBITION 211 


These fourteen points are consequences, disappoint- 
ing in our public health experiences, and are a terrible 
indictment of such regulation. These facts should make 
thinking persons consider seriously if this is the right 
way to deal with the problem. Privileges, that are almost 
as natural as life itself, being swept ruthlessly away over 
night, naturally beget an antagonistic reaction which can 
only be hurtful to a good cause having high aims. Let 
usirefiect, 


SOME PROHIBITION ARGUMENTS? 


National prohibition in the United States has been 
in effect now for nearly four years; surely long enough 
for a fair test of its operation. The late President Hard- 
ing in his annual message to Congress on December 8, 
1922, felt it necessary to make a plea for rigorous and 
literal enforcement of the law. He summed up the exist- 
ing conditions in these words: “In plain speaking, there 
are conditions relating to its enforcement which savour 
of nation-wide scandal. It is the most demoralising 
factor in our public life. Most of the people assume that 
the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment meant the 
elimination of the question from our politics. On the 
contrary, it has been so intensified as an issue that many 
voters are disposed to make all political decisions with 
reference to this single question.” 

The evil conditions referred to by President Hard- 
ing have become far worse since his message was de- 
livered. Crime is so rampant that the Special Committee 
on Law Enforcement of the American Bar Association 
has presented the disgraceful facts in its recent report. 
The report shows that crime is growing faster than popu- 
lation. The committee’s comparison of the criminal 
statistics of American cities with those of France and 

1 Address of Hugh F. Fox, secretary of the United States Brewers’ 


Association at the London conference of the International League Against 
Prohibition. October, 1923. 


212 SELECTED ARTICLES 


England is most significant and alarming, but apparently 
the American public is not concerned or even interested 
in it! 

Dr. Angell, President of Yale University, declared 
in his address to the graduating students last year that 
“the violation of law has never been so general nor so 
widely condoned as at present.” Justice Clarke, of the 
United States Supreme Court, addressing the alumni of 
the New York University Law School, said: “The Eight- 
eenth Amendment required millions of men and women 
to abruptly give up habits and customs of life which they 
thought not immoral or wrong, but which, on the con- 
trary, they believed to be necessary to their reasonable 
comfort and happiness, and thereby, as we all now see, 
respect not only for that law, but for all law, has been 
put to an unprecedented and demoralising strain in our 
country, the end of which it is difficult to see.” John 
Koren, International Prison Commissioner for the 
United States, speaking at the Annual Congress of the 
American Prison Association, said: ‘““The most glaring 
example of the crime-breeding propensities of sump- 
tuary legislation is provided by the national prohibition 
law. The aims of this law are not under my scrutiny; 
and no sane man can question the obligation of the gov- 
ernment to enforce it. My sole object is to point to it 
as the most persistently and flagrantly violated piece of 
legislation ever conceived. More than this, the crimes 
of violence and corruption that have followed upon its 
enactment are beyond count. Distinct, powerful and 
country-wide criminal organizations now undertake to 
dispense drink; but they could not exist—and this is the 
vital point from a criminological point of view—unless 
they receive a most generous support throughout the 
strata of society professedly standing for law and order. 
Not even the law enforcers themselves are free from 
the taint and able to stand up to their tasks. . . . The 
facts are open to everyone; and all of you make claim 
to a knowledge also of the weaknesses of human nature. 


PROHIBITION 213 


My sole mission is to draw your attention to the poten- 
tialities of legislation as a breeder of crime when it lacks 
the support of a clearly defined and absolutely dominant 
public opinion.” Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President 
of Columbia University, in an address delivered before 
the Ohio State Bar Association last January, made the 
assertion: ‘“That disregard of law, disobedience to law, 
and contempt for law have greatly increased and are still 
increasing in this country, is not to be doubted... . It 
is rather a sorry outcome of our century and a half of 
existence as an independent nation, proclaiming to the 
world the discovery of the best possible method of pro- 
viding for liberty under law, that we should now be 
pointed to as the law-breaking nation par excellence.”’ 
The Honorable Joseph Bailey, former United States sen- 
ator from Texas, told the Mississippi Bar Association at 
its last annual meeting that “the Volstead law is vio- 
lated a million times every week.” There are a host of 
other witnesses whose testimony might be cited, but I 
have selected these to indicate to you what our most 
responsible and courageous public men think and say 
-about our present conditions. As Fabian Franklin, the 
well-known publicist, points out in his notable essay on 
“What Prohibition Has Done to America,’ “the real 
struggle is not with the thousands who furnish liquor, 
but with the hundreds of thousands, or millions, to whom 
they purvey it.” 

The reports of the police authorities in practically all 
important American cities show a steady increase in pub- 
lic drunkenness, but the figures do not tell the tale of 
what is going on in the homes of the people, or behind 
closed doors in the private clubs and social organizations! 
There has been a startling increase in the number of 
automobile accidents which were due to drunken drivers; 
and an equally startling increase in divorces, suicides and 
homicides. Day by day the newspapers record the num- 
ber of deaths from the effect of poisonous liquor. In 
Philadelphia the coroner reports five hundred two 


214 SELECTED ARTICLES 


deaths from this cause in five months. Dr. James Whit- 
ney Hall, chairman of the Medical Commission on In- 
sanity for Cook County, in which Chicago is situated, 
says that deaths directly traceable to alcoholism and the 
sale of poisonous liquor have doubled under national 
prohibition. Dr. S. Dana Hubbard, director of the 
Bureau of Public Health Education of New York City, 
declares, in a recent issue of the New York Medical Jour- 
nal, that prohibition has increased enormously the deaths 
from wood alcohol; has increased admission to general 
hospitals of cases of alcoholism, and has caused poisonous 
death-dealing drinks to be made and sold promiscuously. 
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company has published 
a table showing the deaths from acute and chronic alco- 
holism per one hundred thousand policy-holders, from 
1911 to 1923. The death-rate on this basis was from 4 
to 5 per cent from 1911 to 1917. In the first two years 
of prohibition it was less than 1 per cent, but in the first 
six months of 1923 it had gone up to 3.3 per cent. 

In their laboured effort to make a case for prohibition, 
the professional prohibitionists and their satellite, the 
United States Prohibition Commissioner, make much of 
the recent increase of house building and savings-bank 
deposits. The alleged increase in expenditures for such 
building construction from $40,000,000 in the five years 
before prohibition to $328,000,000 since, has no relation 
to prohibition. The five years before prohibition in- 
cluded the war period, with its enforced proscription on 
all construction work not essential to war operations. 
The increase since does not anywhere near cover the 
deficiency in building caused by war-time restrictions, 
which is only natural considering that the cost of build- 
ing has trebled. 

With respect to the increase in savings deposits, the 
principal factor is the very large increase in wages and in 
the constancy of employment, which are related to the 
present cycle of prosperity in the United States, and to 
the restrictions upon immigration. It is also worth not- 


PROHIBITION 215 


ing that during the war the government entered upon a 
national advertising campaign to “sell” thrift to the 
American people. One of the results is most interesting. 
The large banks, which previously had been “cold” to 
a Savings Department because of the expense and trouble 
of the clerical work which it involves, became convinced 
by actual figures that such a department would swell 
their assets enormously, and such a fever of competition 
for savings accounts developed that service organizations 
have sprung up which put on a staff of special salesmen 
who make a house-to-house canvass for small accounts. 
In a number of instances premiums in the shape of at- 
tractive articles such as pencil-cases, etc., have been of- 
fered to those who open new accounts. If prohibition 
has played any part in the matter it is because imported 
liquor has been driven into the luxury class; because the 
“treating custom” has been greatly reduced, and because 
millions of families have now learnt to make alcoholic 
beverages for themselves at a small cost. 

Much has been made, for example, of recent reduc- 
tions in the pressure on certain of the private charity 
organizations. That prohibition may have played a part 
in it is possible, but I believe it has been a minor one. 
A most considerable part of the charity work formerly 
relegated to private organizations is now undertaken by 
the public through some form of soldiers’ relief. The 
Federal government alone is distributing $450,000,000 
per annum for the rehabilitation of needy veterans; most 
of our states have provided a bonus payment for all men 
in the service, and almost every city of any size has its 
special department ministering to veterans and their 
families. The great war, among its many curious oper- 
ations, seems to have made away in large part with the 
derelicts of society. Whether almost everyone was 
pressed into some sort of service during the years of 
stress, or whether many of the weaker simply passed 
out of life, need not be discussed; the fact remains that 
before the advent of prohibition the demand on public 


216 SELECTED GAR TIGERS 


and private charity had fallen off greatly. The phe- 
nomenon was visible not only in the United States, but 
was observed, I believe, in the neutral countries of 
Europe, such as Holland, Switzerland, and the Scandi- 
navian countries. In the United States the virtual stop- 
page of immigration has vastly increased the casual 
worker’s opportunity for employment, while the labour 
unions have been able to meet non-employment during 
strikes with larger benefit funds than they have ever had 
before. Charity workers are prone to magnify drink 
as a factor in poverty and to minimise the relation of 
unhappy economic conditions to intemperance. 

No doubt the cost of bootleggers’ liquor tends to 
keep some men sober, but the extent to which drink has 
been driven into the homes of the people can only be 
indicated. Home brewing is of minor consequence, but 
the making of spirits by individuals for their own con- 
sumption, and by moonshiners for sale, is quite common 
and is increasing steadily. Prohibition officials them- 
selves admit that illicit distilling within the United States 
for commercial purposes is far more important than 
smuggling. As for home-wine making, the volume is 
enormous. Since prohibition went into effect over half 
a million acres of new vineyards have been planted, and 
it is estimated, quite conservatively, that the total quan- 
tity of home-made wine is three times greater than that 
which was formerly made in the commercial wineries of 
the United States, plus the imports from other countries. 
It should be noted, however, that the prohibition enforce- 
ment officials have granted a special dispensation to 
farmers and families who make their own wine. :Indi- 
viduals are permitted to make two hundred gallons a 
year for their own use, under the name of “non-intoxi- 
cating fruit juices,’ and the test is one of fact as to 
whether they are intoxicants, without any limit as to 
their alcoholic percentage. To you who have perfected 
your wines, beers and other beverages by generations of 
scientific experimentation, I need not point out that the 


PROHIBITION 217 


stuff which is being made by American moonshiners, or 
in home kitchens, and which is now common in every 
nook and corner of the United States, is crude, raw, im- 
mature and unwholesome, even if it is not actually poison- 
ous. From the health standpoint the tale will unfold 
itself with increasing seriousness from year to year. 

A word as to the police problem which is involved in 
the enforcement of prohibition. The frontier boundaries 
and coast line of the United States total seventeen thou- 
sand five hundred miles. Police experts say that it would 
tax our entire army and navy to put a stop to smuggling. 
In the face of an adverse, or at any rate of a divided 
public sentiment, it is certain that Congress will not ap- 
propriate the very large sum of money which would be 
required to employ an adequate Federal police force; 
hence the effort to unload the major part of the job upon 
state and local authorities. It is however equally certain 
that state legislative bodies will not consent to increase 
the burden of taxation by voting appropriations for a 
state prohibition constabulary, so that the burden is be- 
ing shifted to municipal policemen, who are already over- 
loaded with other and more important duties. There are 
thousands of small places that have never been visited 
by a prohibition officer. Official corruption is of course 
rife, and the courts are swamped with liquor cases. 

In a word, the enforcement of prohibition has almost 
reached the breaking point, principally for the reason that 
the cooperation of the people is lacking. Labor is sullen 
because the law in its operation has proved to be class 
legislation. “Society” has become lawless, and the rising 
generation is taking to drink as Eve did to the forbidden 
apple. The only sections of the country which really 
give prohibition any moral support are those which had 
already adopted it by their own action, and in which for 
the most part local prohibition corresponded to a definite 
police jurisdiction. I have refrained from emphasizing 
the loss of revenue under prohibition, because this is not 
the major consideration. There is, however, a potential 


218 eo a DA Cd BN EDN Bi YG 2 BY Des 


revenue ef possibly $1,000,000,000 a year which might 
be obtained from internal revenue taxes and import duties 
in the United States if beer and light wines were restored 
to the American people, and if good spirits were avail- 
able through government agencies for medicinal pur- 
poses. 

It is practically impossible to repeal any Article of 
the Constitution. The question is, how can the Eight- 
eenth Amendment be made to work for the restoration 
of temperance and orderly government to the American 
people? There are many persons who had a friendly 
feeling for the experiment of national prohibition, but 
who accepted it with some misgiving as to its practica- 
bility. They felt that it could not be expected to work 
without a good deal of adjustment, but they were dis- 
posed to give it a fair trial. Most of them are now con- 
vinced that the Volstead Act is a stumbling block. The 
Eighteenth Amendment is so simple and so elastic that 
indeed it lends itself to any reasonable change in plan or 
method that may be proved necessary. The amendment 
merely established the principle of national prohibition, 
and left it to Congress to provide by “appropriate legisla- 
tion” for its effective enforcement. The trouble is that 
Congress has gone too far. The Eighteenth Amendment 
prohibits “intoxicating liquors’—not alcoholic liquors, ex- 
cept in so far as they may be in fact intoxicating. The 
Volstead Act, with its absurd % of 1 per cent definition 
of an intoxicating liquor, is a misnomer. Its real authors 
are the attorneys and high priesthood of the Anti-Saloon 
League, whose word has hitherto been accepted as law 
by Congress. For some reason—or unreason—the pro- 
fessional leaders of the league are never willing to admit 
that they have made a mistake. This act of theirs is 
“sacrosanct,” and no one must lay impious hands upon 
it. There is, however, no doubt in the minds of the 
police authorities and of the press that the law in its 
present form won’t work, and must be modified. 

A modification of the Volstead Act to make it cor- 


PROHIBITION 219 


respond to the language of the Eighteenth Amendment 
would make prohibition much more workable, because it 
would limit its operation to those beverages which by 
common consent are regarded as intoxicating. Such a 
modification would give the wage-earner his beer, and 
thus win over what is probably the largest class of dis- 
satished people. Some provision would have to be made 
by the Federal government, however, to supply pure 
spirits at a reasonable price for medicinal purposes. It 
is clear that the people must be won over to prohibition 
by honest and rational “administration.” It cannot be 
imposed by mere force! 

The case has been ably summed up by a former gov- 
ernor of New Jersey, the Honorable E. C. Stokes, who 
occupies a distinguished position as a publicist, and is 
himself a total abstainer. In the course of a carefully 
studied address, Mr. Stokes said that “we are building 
up a nation-wide industry in smuggling and rum-running, 
lessening the national respect for law and order, estab- 
lishing a bootleggers’ enterprise, promoting thousands of 
dollars in untaxed profits for law breakers and stimu- 
lating the consumption of alcohol in its worst form... . 
No man or woman can be excused from facing this prob- 
lem or trying to solve it by simply passing resolutions. 
We are face to face with a great national disgrace, and, 
I, for one, am not afraid to stand up and demand a 
remedy.” The remedy he suggests is that the Volstead 
Act should be amended so that it will harmonize with 
the Eighteenth Amendment. He might have added that 
the most effective form of prohibition is that which is 
personal and individual! 


BONE WebRENGIPT BTN. THE GONSTIRURION: 


The Eighteenth, or prohibition, Amendment intro- 
duced into the Constitution a wholly new principle. Un- 


1 By Nicholas Murray Butler. Building the American Nation. p. 292-3. 


220 SELECTED ARTICLES 


til its adoption the Constitution had included a frame- 
work of government, an enumeration of powers and limi- 
tations, a mode of amendment, and a bill of rights. Now 
for the first time there was introduced into the funda- 
mental law an act of legislation in the form of a drastic 
and uniform exercise of the police power. The novelty 
and the danger of this use of the amending power as well 
as the likelihood that it may defeat its own ends are 
fairly obvious. If the Constitution had been amended by 
conferring upon the Congress the power to control, limit, 
or prohibit the manufacture, sale, or transportation of in- 
toxicating liquors, there would have been no departure 
from the general theory of the Constitution. Under the 
terms of such an amendment it might be expected that 
the Congress would from time to time deal with this 
subject in such ways as public opinion might require, and 
would always be free to amend or repeal any statutory 
provision which had been shown by experience to be in- 
sufficient or inexpedient. By putting this legislative act 
in the Constitution itself, however, where to all intents 
and purposes it is beyond the reach of amendment or 
repeal (since one-fourth of the states plus one, no mat- 
ter what their population, can prevent such amendment 
or repeal), a situation was created whereby large num- 
bers of persons, feeling certain that this new provision 
of law can neither be amended nor repealed, and dis- 
senting entirely from the grounds upon which it was 
urged, more or less widely and more or less openly 
violate its provisions. The same thing would happen in 
the case of any sumptuary law attempted to be imposed 
upon a large, widely scattered, and heterogeneous popu- 
lation of different habits, tastes, and traditions. Herein 
lies the danger of attempting to correct or improve pri- 
vate morals and personal conduct by law, and especially 
by constitutional provision. 

The instinct of every good citizen is to obey the 
law, whether agreeable or not, and to assist in secur- 


PROHIBITION 221 


ing its obedience by others. Obedience to law, however, 
is one thing, and enforcement of law is quite another. 
The former may come after a lapse of time; the latter 
may never be attainable. As a result of the adoption 
of the Eighteenth Amendment, the people of the United 
States are now confronted by the exceedingly difficult 
problem, some think the insoluble problem, of attempt- 
ing to build up respect for law and obedience to law, 
while enforcing by the most extreme measures a par- 
ticular provision of law which a large proportion of 
the population resent and are ready to defy. The re- 
sulting situation raises so many questions of political 
policy and of private and public morals that it seems 
bound to occupy a large measure of public attention for 
some time to come. 


BACCO HE DRY SCREEN BR Ys 


Prohibition enforcement is costing this country up- 
wards of $2,000,000,000 a year. This is a bold state- 
ment. The sky is the limit on the subject of prohibi- 
tion and its cost. At least, this is as it appears to us 
after several months’ close study of the question for 
Popular Finance. In fact, it looks as if $2,000,000,000 
a year is only half of what prohibition enforcement is 
costing. 

The first question you ask us is: “Where do you 
get the figures? Don’t you know that you are talking 
in terms that equal the national budget?” 

The editor of Popular Finance told us to make an 
unbiased investigation into the cost attending prohibi- 
tion. He wanted us to step right out into the middle 
of the street and stay there; not taking either side of 
the wet or dry question; and to write an article that 


1 By Robert Alden. Popular Finance. 1: 6-11. September, 1923. 


222 SELECTED VAR LIGIES 


either a rabid wet or an equally rabid dry, or any 
thoughtful person, should read. It was a big assignment. 

We must admit that we found it difficult to remain 
in the exact middle of the street during our investiga- 
tion. We found it necessary to visit the dry side of 
the street and then cross over. But, as we write, we 
are centrally located again—not on the water wagon or 
on a personal-liberty plank, but up on a high board-fence 
with one thought in mind—costs! 

We advance the claim that we have read more litera- 
ture and studied more data on the prohibition question 
in the past few months than any other one person in 
the United States. And this research entitles us to an 
opinion. It is this: The public is not being told the real 
facts. 

In many ways is the above statement true. There 
are few exceptions. A few newspapers do write un- 
biased editorials on the subject; but the larger number 
are either dry or wet. One does not expect the Anti- 
Saloon League to publish any data which gives sub- 
stance to the arguments of the “wets,” nor is it expected 
that the Association Against the Prohibition Amend- 
ment will make “dry” speeches. But one does expect 
that journals which pretend to be informative shall pub- 
lish facts—and this is rarely the case. 

We have before us the correspondence between a wet 
authority and the editor of a great national publication 
devoted to women’s interests. Glaring misstatements 
appearing in an article favoring prohibition were drawn 
to the attention of the editor and protest made. The 
editor replied that regardless of what had appeared in 
the article in question, it reflected the editorial opinion 
of the publication. And we happen to know that the 
editor’s personal opinion and practice is very wet. This 
is not a reflection on the drys, for the circumstances 
might easily have been reversed. The incident merely 
points out that most of us are so blindly partisan that 
we do not want a fair presentation of a case—particu- 


PROHIBITION 223 


larly on the subject of prohibition. That editor was 
catering to his readers. 

“A man cannot serve two masters,’ was written cen- 
turies ago. This applies to the prohibition question. But 
it seems iniquitous that such an important question can- 
not be presented fairly and accurately. 


+) 


SUBJECT OF AGRICULTURAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND 
Economic IMPorRT 


Prohibition remains a very live question today. Many 
hoped that it would become a “dead issue.” In its 
present stage, it will never cease to be a public menace. 
Nearly every metropolitan newspaper is devoting two 
columns a day, at least, to prohibition news. We have 
enacted a constitutional amendment and enforcement 
legislation that a very large number of our citizens are 
not obeying. To call our disobedient citizens “criminal’’ 
is not enough. The fact of their refusal to comply 
with the law makes prohibition a much greater public 
question than it was before the passage of the amend- 
ment. Wayne B. Wheeler, national counsel for the 
Anti-Saloon League of America, is quoted, referring to 
the situation in New York, which state annulled its 
enforcement act, that the New York action “places the 
prohibition question in the forefront of the most im- 
portant issues of the presidential campaign.” 

Pronouncements of Major Roy A. Haynes, enforce- 
ment commissioner, are necessarily propaganda aimed 
to assist in enforcement. He must suppress much in- 
formation that is unfavorable to prohibition. We read 
through a file of the statements issued by his office for 
the press and found not one item that was anything 
approaching an unfavorable report on prohibition from 
the standpoint of costs or otherwise. And yet Major 
Haynes has been one of the best men one could expect 
to find in the position he holds. And he would not be 
if he were not in possession of much information that 
he does not make public. We do not blame him for 


224 SELECTEDVARTIGLES 


this—not in the slightest ; but again our point: the public 
is not getting the facts. 

But there is another reason why the public is not 
fully informed on the prohibition question. The facts 
are hard to get and important statistics are almost 
wholly lacking. High officials who have come from 
other countries to study the effects of prohibition were 
forced to admit that they were taking back with them 
nothing but an opinion. Perhaps if an unbiased con- 
eressional investigating committee—if it were possible 
to select such a body—could spend two months in hear- 
ing competent testimony on the subject there is no doubt 
it would shoot wide of its mark in making its report. 
That is how difficult we think it is to successfully probe 
the prohibition question. 

The least study of the prohibition question presents 
such monumental aspects as to confound one. One in- 
terested person started a five-thousand word article on 
the subject and finished an eighty-thousand-word book 
without having exhausted his data. One discovers that 
the one word, “Prohibition,” has ramifications that 1m- 
mediately became world-wide in scope. Politics and 
religion of every shade and shadow are deeply involved 
in prohibition. It is—beyond all peradventure—an un- 
dying subject of agricultural, industrial, and economic 
importance. 


OnE HUNDRED MILLION GALLONS OF WINE 
BEING CONSUMED 


We have only to consider the economic aspect. That 
alone grew on us until we would rather have faced 
analyzing the German debt. One can get at the ques- 
tion of how much Germany should pay France. There 
is something tangible to it. But the main facts of pro- 
hibition are like a thunder storm. Only Thor could 
get his hand on the bolt. 

Notwithstanding, we will assume the role of Ajax 
and tackle the question. Come with us, first, to the 


PROHIBITION 225 


headquarters of the drys, the Anti-Saloon League, up 
on the fifteenth floor of 906 Broadway, New York City. 

After stating our errand we were turned over to 
Miss Tubbs, a gracious lady who handles statistics for 
the drys. She has two assistants, an efficient depart- 
ment, and is able to put her finger on any data the drys 
need. Miss Tubbs told us that we could not get what 
we were seeking—the costs under prohibition. She was 
willing to put everything that had been written on the 
subject before us, with the thought we could piece to- 
gether odds and ends of information. But we had an 
ulterior reason for wanting to browse through the library 
of the Anti-Saloon League: It holds considerable data 
that has been furnished, firsthand, by Mr. Wayne B. 
Wheeler from Washington, D.C. He is credited with 
the authorship of the Volstead Act, and was active in 
its passage. We assumed that Mr. Wheeler would be 
able to obtain considerable data that were not procur- 
able elsewhere. This proved to be the case. Mr. Wheeler 
has discovered some things that the Department of In- 
ternal Revenue has not—or, at least, has not published 
in its reports. 

While in the offices of the league we listened to 
William Eugene Johnson, commonly known as “Pussy- 
foot,’ who happened in from New Zealand on his way 
to Europe. Mr. Johnson is an international hero of 
the dry forces and a veteran campaigner. He is still 
fighting vigorously the strongholds of John Barleycorn. 
We mention this in passing, merely, for we did not have 
a single question to ask Mr. Johnson. We were after 
figures—figures that he or no one else could give us. 
Recently he set the country laughing with the statement 
that he had seen but seven drunks in a trip across the 
United States from San Francisco to New York. And 
we wanted figures! 

To start with we wanted to know how much money 
was being expended for liquor in the United States of 
America, today, in defiance of the Volstead Act. The 


226 SELEGUEID GA GLORES 


inquiry was utterly absurd. No wonder Miss Tubbs 
laughed. 

But we had one fact in mind: There are one hundred 
million gallons of wine—dry and sweet—being con- 
sumed in this country annually. 

Where did we get that figure—one hundred million 
gallons? We have real information on which to base 
it. We know that California alone, produced upwards 
of twenty-five thousand carlots of grapes last year, and 
that twenty-five thousand carlots of grapes will make 
more than fifty million gallons of wine. Under present 
rulings, anyone is entitled to make two hundred gallons 
of “fruit juices” annually. Other states indicate a pro- 
duction of an additional twenty-five million gallons of 
dry wine. Heavy increases in the importation of raisins, 
currants, and increased prices of figs indicate the mak- 
ing of enough dry and sweet wines to bring the total 
up to that one hundred million gallons. No well-informed 
person will dispute this figure. 

We assumed this one hundred million-gallon figure to 
be the case, in a discussion of it with Miss Tubbs. She 
listened to us without comment. Then we assumed that 
four times the value of what was being expended for 
wine was spent for beer and all other liquors—smuggled 
whisky, illicitly distilled gin, and variegated brands of 
hootch. Miss Tubbs continued to listen with interest. 
We did not tell her that many authorities whom we 
have consulted had put the ratio at eight times instead 
of our conservative estimate of four. It is our opinion, 
and many will agree, that eight is more nearly a cor- 
rect factor than four. 

Now, what value shall we put on that one hundred 
million gallons of wine? We know the market price 
ranges from $3 to $12 a gallon, and that little of it is 
to be had, except in California, for under $4 a gallon. 
We will take the latter figure. What have we arrived 
at? A simple matter of arithmetic: 


PROHIBITION 227 


Four times the value of one hundred million gallons 
of wine, at $4 a gallon, equals $1,600,000,000, spent on 
liquor other than wine. 

This was the manner in which we put the proposi- 
tion to Miss Tubbs, statistician of the league. 

“Tt’s much too much!” was her remark. Her man- 
ner, however, betokened that she was impressed with 
the figures. It was not our purpose to press her 
further, or to bore her with impossible figures that were 
not obtainable. 

We did not add that the one hundred million gallons 
of wine has a valuation of $400,000,C00. This added 
to the $1,600,000,000 gives a total of $2,000,000,000— 
the sum we stated at the outset. The figures are ultra- 
conservative ! 


CLAIMS SAvINGS HAvE INCREASED Two BILLIONS 


While at the offices of the Anti-Saloon League, we 
observed many more circumstances—for the League is 
not idle by any means—but there was little bearing on 
the economic phases of the prohibition question as it 
exists today. There were reports on increased savings- 
bank deposits, attributed by the league to the closing of 
the saloon, of course; yet were we to undertake con- 
sideration of increased savings we would at once be 
launched in their bearing in the light of changed eco- 
nomic conditions, normal increases, and other elements. 
Inasmuch as the greatest authorities on banking have 
not attempted this, we will pass it here. Let us grant 
that savings have shown an increase as the result of 
prohibition—how much, even that unbiased congressional 
committee could not determine. Wayne B. Wheeler 
claims that savings have increased two billions. 

It was logical that our next step should be a visit 
to the wets. The one avowedly wet organization is the 
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment with 
headquarters at Washington, D.C. This name is a mis- 


228 SELECTEDGARTICLES 


nomer. By its own statements, the association is not 
directly opposed to the Eighteenth Amendment, but to 
the Volstead Act. It is out to change the Volstead Act. 
Among its officers and members is an impressing array 
of personages from every walk of life. In New York 
the treasurer, until his death, a few months ago, was 
Stuyvesant Fish, a power in the financial world, and 
tormerly, president of the Illinois Central Railroad. 

Let us interpolate a tip to students of the prohibition 
question. It will avail nothing to make surveys of wet 
or dry states, or districts within states, throughout this 
country. It is almost axiomatic of prohibition of our 
day, that there is enforcement where enforcement is 
not needed and no enforcement where enforcement is 
needed. A study of Kansas is valueless even if it be 
shown that this state is profitably dry. It is the active 
minority influence that must be watched. Popular 
opinion in the United States is as unstable as_ chaff 
before a north wind. We can give Democrats or Re- 
publicans overwhelming majorities. We can be against 
war one fall and up in arms the next spring. We wor- 
ship a leader and set him in a high place one week, 
and tear him down over Sunday. We can favor a 
League of Nations, rave against it, and then clamor 
for it. 

It is absolutely certain that there was no popular 
majority for prohibition in January, 1920, when the 
Volstead Act went into effect. That was the work of 
an active minority as opposed to another small minority, 
and the continuance of prohibition now rests entirely 
with the work of these minorities. The principles of 
prohibition, be they good or bad, will have no full bear- 
ing on the final outcome. The drys of this country may 
yet see the results of their years of effort undone in one 
session of Congress. And now we are to seek to learn, 
from the standpoint of costs, what the wets are doing 
in this country toward that end—undoing the work of 
the drys, 


PROHIBITION 229 


ANp TAxEs Have INCREASED, Too? 


We went to the New York headquarters of the As- 
sociation Against the Prohibition Amendment. There, 
a former army captain, in charge, told us that the statis- 
tician of the association was Captain William L. Fish, 
a resident of Newark, New Jersey. 

Captain Fish is a tall, slight, kindly appearing, white- 
haired gentleman, whose age might be anywhere be- 
tween fifty and sixty-five. He greeted us in an easy 
voice. He is a busy man, too, and was forced to divide 
his attention, for a time, between his answers to pre- 
liminary questions, and the final O.K. of proofs for the 
Minute Man, the monthly publication of the association. 

Bank deposits had increased since 1920, Captain Fish 
admitted, but only normally. ‘Don’t forget that taxes 
have increased,” he added, drawing receipts from his 
personal files which indicated that he had paid $288, in 
1913, on real property and $623 on the same property in 
1922. The advance he attributes to prohibition. He 
said that the liquor industry had bought a revenue to 
his state of close to $1,000,000 a year; but, with that 
gone, he like everyone else, had to make it up. “And 
the worst of it is that the liquor industry still exists, 
tax free, like a non-taxable security,” he said. 

It was when we asked Captain Fish what was being 
spent today, in this country for liquor that he gave us 
a big surprise with, “I don’t know.” We could excuse 
Miss Tubbs in the headquarters of the league for not 
knowing; but we thought it the business of Captain 
Fish to have the information or an opinion. We pressed 
him for an estimate, without avail. He could not afford 
to hazard even a personal opinion, he said, for he had 
made it a point to give utterance to no statement on 
which he was not fully informed. Captain Fish, who 
obeys the Volstead Act to the letter, is fighting prohi- 
bition on moral grounds. 

Captain Fish was forced to excuse himself to make 


230 SELECTED ARTICLES 


a trip to his printer. This gave us an opportunity we 
wanted. Captain Fish had said there were nine hun- 
dred and seventy odd saloons running wide open in 
Newark. We didn’t believe him. Newark has a popu- 
lation of three hundred and forty-seven thousand. Man- 
hattan with a population of two million seven hundred 
and sixty-three thousand has but two thousand saloons. 
We wanted to find out about Newark for ourselves. 
Alone, unaided by directions, in a city we had not 
been in two hours, we found three saloons in four blocks, 
bars, glasses, bottles, brass rails and everything. And 
we purchased three large glasses of beer at 10 cents a 
glass. Some writers have said that this could not be 
done, that one requires an introduction to procure a 
drink. This we deny most emphatically. Philadelphia 
is the only large city of seven from the Pacific to the 
Atlantic Coast in which we have not found it easy to 
get a drink. In Philadelphia, twenty-four hours’ casual 
observation netted us nothing; but introduction at clubs 
—that is different! Yes, we are fully aware we may 
have overlooked a few bets in the Quaker City. Phila- 
delphia’s arrest figures for drunkenness are high. 


Was ALCOHOL DESTINED TO COMPETE WITH OIL? 


An international issue has arisen over the question 
of liquor being carried on foreign ships entering Ameri- 
can waters. One would naturally think it was the Anti- 
Saloon League that had stirred up this mess about 
liquor on ships. Not at all. It was our mild-mannered 
Captain Fish of Newark, New Jersey. He did it with 
his Minute Man. It was a thoroughly consistent bit 
of activity, quite in keeping with the tenet of his organi- 
zation: “This association stands squarely for obedience 
to the prohibition laws and every other law.” 

This problem of prohibition has been put up to our 
chief executive, as if his duties were not sufficient with- 
out adding any of the perplexities of enforcement. As 


PROHIBITION 231 


the high magistrate of the nation, the President is sup- 
posed to find ways and means to make prohibition a 
reality. His task of enforcement is not confined to the 
United States, but he must exercise his authority on 
the high seas. And it is a huge, an insuperable task. 
The crux of the whole indifference to prohibition is 
centered in this fact: The people are unable to see the 
harm in breaking the Volstead law inasmuch as drink- 
ing liquor is just as much a personal matter as smok- 
ing tobacco. 

Captain Fish has a real idea. As to its merits we 
vouchsafe no opinion. The thing for us to consider 
is that the association is now engaged in spreading it 
as part of its propaganda. Our interest in it is purely 
economic, for it is advanced by the association as the 
one big item in the cost of prohibition enforcement. 

Captain Fish believes that prohibition was a_ gold 
brick handed this country by the oil companies. Put 
very briefly, for those who have not heard it before, 
and few have, his idea is simply this: Alcohol bid fair 
to become an industrial competitor to gasoline, and the 
oil companies promptly spent millions in suppressing 
alcohol. 

On the face of it this seems a far-fetched propo- 
sition, but the Senate of the United States heard about 
it and was mightily interested. We have only to quote 
from the speech of Senator Broussard, delivered on 
February 27, 1923, to show what Captain Fish is driv- 
ing at. But before we do so, it 1s necessary for us to 
accept as a scientific fact the statement that alcohol as 
a fuel is superior to gasoline. It is the consensus of 
opinion of the foremost engineers of the world. 

England, a country that imports its raw materials, 
is making alcohol successful for use as motor fuel, and, 
‘at the same time, is experimenting on its production in 
her island possessions. 

Australia pays a bonus for the production of materials 
and another bonus for the manufacture of alcobol. Both 


232 SHEE GT EDA Gtk s 


are countries that do not produce petroleum. Germany 
is one of the largest producers of industrial alcohol, and 
is said to have fought the last two years of the World 
War with it. Germany produced more alcohol in 1914, 
principally from potatoes, than did the United States in 
1922. Scientists claim that tropical vegetation is con- 
vertible into alcohol. Another scientist says that 5 
per cent of the motor fuel used in this country, one 
hundred and sixty-two million gallons, could be produced 
from sugar waste alone at a total cost of 10 cents a 
gallon if the cost of sugar waste, or “black strap” were 
5 cents a gallon. The entire crop of Louisiana “black 
strap” was sold, last year, for % cent a gallon. 

All of this is but the briefest summary of what the 
association is telling the farmers of this country. The 
statements may be verified in any library. 


ALCOHOL CouLp BE MApE FROM REFUSE EVEN 


Henry Ford’s experiments on the production of 
alcohol from straw are reported to be successful in sci- 
entific circles; but, to date, he has made no complete 
announcement of the costs. All he has had to say was, 
“TI am now making the fuel my tractors can use, out 
of straw. I am putting up a $35,000 plant to manu- 
facture alcohol from straw alone, just to show people 
iccanmbesdone. 

We now have the background for Senator Brous- 
sard’s speech before the Senate: 


Mr. President, on June 7, 1906, I consider that this country 
was delivered over to prohibition, because it seems to me that 
the minute it was recognized that alcohol would be a competitor 
of gasoline there was a rush to destroy it, not only on the part 
of those who were interested primarily in bringing prohibition 
onto the people of the United States, but aided and abetted by 
those who saw in the movement some economic advantage that 
might accrue to them. 

On that day, the Congress enacted a law making alcohol 
unfit for beverage or medical purposes, tax free. ‘The ettect of 
the law, if it had been allowed to work out, would have been to 
give the farmer, out of his own resources, his light and heat and 


PROHIBITION 233 


fuel; alcohol could have been distilled from his spoiled and un- 
usable crops, from refuse of all kinds. In seasons of heavy crops 
and consequential low prices, these farm products could be 
converted into alcohol and stored until a time when poorer 
crops insure a better price, thus insuring a balance wheel of 
agriculture and steadiness of prices. 

However, the hand of death was effectively laid upon such 
use of surplus material of the farmers by Regulation No. 30 is- 
sued September 29, 1906, by the Commissioner of Internal Rev- 
enue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, three 
months before the law went into effect. No farmer has ever prof- 
ited from the free denatured-alcohol he was to make from his 
waste, because the regulations, embracing one hundred and fifty- 
two sections were so drastic and impossible of observance, ex- 
cept by rich corporations, that the law was, to all intents and 
purposes, a dead letter. 

Who framed these deadly regulations? Was it not the same 
forces that were at work to bring about the adoption of the 
Eighteenth Amendment and the adoption of the national pro- 
hibition law? Of course it was. 


But where is the direct evidence of all this? There 
is none; it is purely inferential. Oil men, admitting 
there is no argument on the question of the superiority 
of alcohol over gasoline, refuse to get excited and 
calmly ask if. any considerable amount of alcohol can 
be manufactured at a price to compete with gasoline. 

There is something we cannot answer from a prac- 
tical standpoint. Theory is always one thing and 
practice another. Still, we can remember a time when 
gasoline was being thrown away because there was no 
development of the gas engine for its use, and likewise 
there has been no development of an industry for the 
manufacture of alcohol. 

We must admit that this theory of alcohol as fuel 
has possibilities that are practical, and give them some 
study in the light of the costs of prohibition enforce- 
ment. Thousands of copies of Senator Broussard’s 
speech are being put into the hands of the farmer, and 
are bound to have some effect. It was Captain Fish, 
too, who furnished Senator Broussard with much of 
his data, for Captain Fish has a wide reputation as an 
authority on the use of alcohol. We have only to work 


234 SELECTED ARTICLES 


out some basis of costs on the statement of Senator 
Broussard that prohibition was used to stifle alcohol; 
and so, for our purpose, let us pursue the results. 

In 1906, gasoline in the United States was 10 cents 
a gallon and alcohol was to be had at 8 cents a gallon. 
The 8 cents is the Cuba figure, taken because there was 
an internal-revenue tax on the manufacture of alcohol 
in the United States. We have already shown it could 
be as cheap in this country. Today, gasoline is around 
24 cents. It has been as high as 38 cents. Denatured 
alcohol is close to 60 cents a gallon. We will assume 
arbitrarily that gasoline has a strong competitor and is 
selling at 12 cents a gallon, instead of around 25 cents. 
This means that the country is out $500,000,000 a year 
on the basis of a four-billion gallon consumption of 
gasoline. 

This alcohol fuel question, we believe, will be a big 
issue before the next Congress, and will be well threshed 
out. Perhaps we shall know more about it when the 
debates are finished. We know three senators who are 
very busy, today, looking into the matter. As the wets 
are making it the meat of their program, it is well that 
the public learn the real facts. It would be a marvelous 
revelation should it develop that it was actually King 
Gasoline who slipped the skids under John Barleycorn, 
wouldn’t it? 


BEER Was NINE-TENTHS OF TRAFFIC 


Earlier, we included beer in our costs of what was 
spent under prohibition. Just what the breweries are 
doing is extremely difficult to surmise—so much so as 
to cause us to pass it by, even as a matter of broad 
conjecture. Let us quote, to indicate what we imply, 
from the 1922 Report of the Department of Internal 
Revenue, the following: 


There were five hundred cereal-beverage manufacturing 
plants in the United States. Of these over two hundred have 
been reported during the past twelve months for violations of 
the law. 


PROHIBITION 235 


Please note the official use of the word “over.” 

We do know, from accurate figures, that England, last 
year, realized $572,839,500 from taxes on beer and ale. 
England taxed 3 per cent beer 39 cents a gallon, in 1922, 
and has reduced it to 26 cents for 1923. 

The United States has more than twice the popula- 
tion of Great Britain. In 1914, we drank sixty-six mil- 
lion barrels of beer. It is no feat of the imagination to 
believe that we could now drink fifty million barrels of 
beer a year. The figure is reduced for this reason: It 
does not seem possible that the saloon will ever be per- 
mitted to come back. No practical substitute for the 
saloon has been suggested, and it is difficult to conceive 
that more than the fifty million barrels of beer could 
be distributed. Use of malt compounds for beer indicate 
the making of ten million barrels of beer in the homes. 

If we were consuming that fifty million barrels of 
beer, annually, as can be done with “perfect propriety” 
under the Eighteenth Amendment, and dealing in 
futures for the moment, it would net this government 
$680,000,000 a year in taxes, using the amount of the 
Quebec tax, 42% cents a gallon. 

It would be a tedious speculation for us to follow out 
the profits, or how they would be divided, on a keg of 
beer. If beer were to sell at 10 cents a glass, a keg would 
have a retail valuation of $51.20. The tax would total 
$13.60, leaving $38.60 for distribution from the brewer 
to the farmer, and, presupposing direct delivery, from 
brewery to consumer. But this is beside the question 
for the $51.20 valuation is far too high as it is based on 
a retailing price of 20 cents a pint obtaining during 
these enforcement days. 

While we are on the subject of beer, another interest- 
ing comparison comes to mind. Miss Tubbs asked us if 
we realized that beer in preprohibition days had consti- 
tuted nine-tenths of the liquor trade. We didn’t; and she 
gave us some figures to prove it. Let us work on the 
idea. That beer consumption of sixty-six million bar- 


236 SELECT ER DWAR IGS 


rels, in 1914, was the heaviest in the beer-drinking his- 
tory of this country. If we retail it out at 5 cents a 
half-pint glass, we will discover that the tape in the cash 
register totals $1,689,600,000. We previously estimated, 
conservatively, that we were spending, today, $2,000,- 
000,000 for all alcoholic liquors. So, in the banner wet 
year, we spent only $1,689,600,000 for nine-tenths of the 
liquor traffic, did we? 

We dare not tamper with our $1,689,600,000 and 
point out that the sixty-six million barrels did not have a 
valuation of that much, lest we be accused of having 
fallen off our fence. Suppose we were to give that 1914 
consumption of beer a valuation of only $1,000,000,000 ; 
then it would mean that nine-tenths of the total liquor 
traffic in 1914 is only half what the total liquor traffic is 
today? 

We are tempted to say with Miss Tubbs: “It is much 
too much.” Yet if it is, we must try and get a check on 
the figures. Perhaps Miss Tubbs meant volume rather 
than valuation when she asked us if we realized that beer 
had constituted nine-tenths of the total liquor traffic in 
preprohibition days; that for every gallon of all other 
liquor consumed there were nine gallons of beer. 


THE PROFITS OF THE BOOTLEGGER 


We have heard expression of the opinion that as 
much money is being expended in the United States to- 
day, for liquor as prior to prohibition. This contention 
is that even though the volume of drinking has been 
appreciably lowered the multiplied prices balance the 
total costs. Some even go so far as to say that the volume 
is greater. Do our deductions give substance to any 
such idea? 

We were unable to get the slightest statistical con- 
ception of the volume of strong liquor consumed today. 
We know little of the extent of the bootlegger’s trade, 
although we have heard something of his profits; and 


PROHIBITION 237 


most of us have ocular evidence of his prosperity, having 
seen his diamonds glitter. A Nova Scotia sea captain 
frankly told us that he and his associates had netted 
$6,000,000 in profits by smuggling whisky, in 1922. 

But let us visit one of the bootleggers—a distiller of 
gin! The whereabouts of this gin mill we are pledged 
never to reveal to a living soul, and will not. Our access 
to its location is a story by itself and was brought about 
in a strange way, which, if related, would tend to reveal 
other circumstances. 

On one floor of this gin mill—a residence from its 
exterior—was a room of shelves which supported dozens 
of five-gallon jars. This room is supposed to be raid proof, 
or at least proof against Volstead officers securing evi- 
dence. Each one of those jars connects with the sewer 
and, in a few minutes, could be emptied. Over each jar 
is a fresh water faucet, reminding one of an arrangement 
of jet fire sprays, the chief purpose of which is, in an 
emergency, to wash remaining evidence from the jars and 
down the sewers. 

The temperature of the contents of those jars was kept 
even by electric thermostats. And the contents of those 
jars is sugar in the process of fermentation. 

Sugar is the chief base of alcohol under prohibition. 
The bootlegger uses thousands of tons of it—either 
brown, white granulated, or corn sugar. Since prohibi- 
tion, the price of corn sugar has doubled. Two pounds 
of sugar will produce one pound, or one pint, of alcohol. 

Each day the contents of a number of those jars, hav- 
ing shown the proper content of alcohol after several 
days, is distilled. The distillation does not take place in 
the jar room but on the floor below. Were a neighbor 
to visit the kitchen containing the still, she would never 
suspect its presence, unless she had a knowing nose, it is 
so cleverly made a part of the household arrangement. 
It, too, connects with the sewer, and the floor above, 
with pipes. The worm and condensing apparatus lead into 
another room—and this worm drips gin! 


238 SELECTED ARTICLES 


The distributing system of this gin mill indicates in- 
geniousness. For months, the gin was delivered on a 
water wagon—one of those spring-water wagons that do 
business in the cities selling water in five-gallon bottles. 
Gin, like water, is white and colorless, and the possibility 
for subterfuge is apparent. Thousands of gallons of gin 
have been delivered by this water-wagon route from this 
gin mill. 

The owner of this gin mill is prosperous. We probed 
to find out just how prosperous; but with little success. 
He did admit that he could sell his gin for a $1 a quart, 
and still have a margin of profit. The price paid for it 
by a number of clubs—golf, country and other sorts— 
was $3 a quart, or $12 a gallon; $60 for those five-gallon 
bottles of “water.” 

He has been in the business for nine months and had 
manufactured about thirty gallons of gin a day. He ex- 
pects to retire from business shortly. Some of the places 
where he sells gin resell it at a 100 per cent profit. And 
this gin distiller is, without doubt, but one of at least ten 
thousand in this country who are manufacturing and 
selling gin. We positively believe this. Gin is the easiest 
and simplest of all the “hard” liquors to manufacture. 


No STATISTICS ON WHISKY PRESCRIPTIONS 


We have still another phase of the costs under pro- 
hibition enforcement; medicinal whisky. It was re- 
marked, while we were at the headquarters of the Anti- 
Saloon League, in New York City, that Wayne B. 
Wheeler was able to give us some information that the 
Department of Internal Revenue could not. 

After we had made a careful study of the 1922 re- 
port, without enlightenment, a letter was addressed to 
the department. The answer, which states the inquiry, 
is as follows: 


PROHIBITION 239 


‘TREASURY DEPARTMENT 
BUREAU OF INTERNAL REVENUE 
Washington, D.C. 
Dear Sir: 


This office is in receipt of your letter of May 25, 1923, re- 
questing information in connection with the number of whisky 
prescriptions issued during the fiscal year 1922, and the amount 
of whisky withdrawn from bond for purposes of filling such 
prescriptions. 

In reply, you are advised that there are no statistics com- 
piled showing the number of prescriptions issued during the 
fiscal year, 1922. During the fiscal year, there were withdrawn, 
from bond, 2,654,506.7 gallons of whisky, the greater portion of 
which liquor was sold on doctors’ prescriptions. 


Respectfully, 
(Signed) James E. Jones, 
Assistant Prohibition Commissioner. 


Mr. Jones had no statistics showing how many pre- 
scriptions had been issued in 1922. But Mr. Wheeler 
had them for 1921, although he had not forwarded pre- 
scriptions for 1922 to the league in New York. Mr. 
Wheeler’s figures show that 40,806 physicians held per- 
mits to prescribe whisky, in 1921, an increase of 8 per 
cent over the number holding them in 1920! 

We wrote again to Mr. Jones and asked him if we 
had erred in the presentation of our inquiry—if we 
should have asked how many physicians held permits 
instead of how many prescriptions had been issued. This 
time his answer, somewhat nearer to the point, was as 
follows: 

You are advised that the information on file in this office 
shows that the Federal prohibition directors of the various 
states reported 44,346 permits issued to physicians during the 
year 1922. 

This shows another increase of 8 per cent over 1921. 

It is quite possible the sum total of permits was not 
on file at the time Mr. Jones answered. Let us examine 
his answer to our first letter. 

He states that the “greater portion” of 2,654,506 
gallons of whisky was sold on doctors’ prescriptions. 
There being eight pints in a gallon, let us multiply eight 


240 SELECTED ARTICLES 
by the “greater portion,’ namely, two million five hun- 
dred thousand gallons, which gives us enough whisky in 
pints to fill twenty million prescriptions. Each doctor 
is entitled to four hundred prescriptions a _ year, 
although a recent decision of the courts gives a 
doctor the right to demand a greater number. But 
dividing twenty million by four hundred, we find that 
fifty thovsand doctors held permits in 1922. But that 
many doctors did not prescribe their full number of four 
hundred prescriptions. Some only prescribed a small 
portion of the four hundred, from which it would appear 
that a much greater number than fifty thousand held 
permits. 

It is surprising that the Department of Internal 
Revenue has no statistics on the exact number of whisky 
prescriptions filled. Every ounce of drugs that comes 
into the country, legitimately, is traced to the users. We 
have already noted that interesting facts are necessarily 
suppressed at Washington. And there is a real reason 
for suppression here. 

The fact is that Washington made the discovery 
that more liquor prescriptions were being issued than 
could be filled by the amount of whisky legally with- 
drawn from the bonded warehouses—far, far more! Un- 
scrupulous druggists were diluting their whisky and even 
filling prescriptions with bootleg stuff. Prohibition off- 
cials immediately saw to it that all liquor sold on pre- 
scriptions must be bottled in bond. And that is not 
half the story of whisky in the drug stores. 

We sought the opinion of prominent physicians as 
to the number of liquor prescriptions issued in this 
country. They may have been wrong, but the con- 
sensus of opinion was that a total of thirty million pre- 
scriptions were filled. That is ten million more pre- 
scriptions than we estimated previously, so let us split 
the difference and make it twenty-five million whisky 
prescriptions. This estimate may still be high, but it 
will not make a great deal of difference to us in our 


PROHIBITION 241 


sum total even if it is. We are reasonably certain it 
is not off more than five million—either way. 

We procured a prescription and went to ten reput- 
able drugstores in New York City before we could get 
it filled. The stated reason for not keeping whisky was 
because the drug stores refused to be bothered with the 
government agents and regulations, which, the druggists 
complained, made living up to the spirit of the law by 
a conscientious druggist very difficult. One of the lead- 
ing pharmacists gave us the address of a drug store 
that kept whisky. We bought a pint, bottled in bond, 
which we took back to the doctor. He pronounced it 
“raw and unpalatable to the stomach of a sick person.” 

That pint has cost us $3. Some drug stores charge 
as high as $5 a pint for the best grade of whisky, or 
at the rate of $40 a gallon. Prior to prohibition, aged 
whisky could be bought from the bonded warehouses 
for 75 cents a gallon; and $1.50 a quart was a stiff 
retail price. Of course, whisky was taxed unmercifully 
during the World War and now has a valuation of 
about $8 a gallon. The importance of this whisky pre- 
scription to us, in our search for costs, is that we can 
multiply its cost, $3, by twenty-five million. Let us 
recapitulate and tabulate some of our estimates, as 
follows: 


The United States Treasury is out annually* in 
taxes on 


Ser tes ETE SA ia rer as Mert RON SES Gi ose. a $680,000,000 
Wyatt y gietacrcome phy qk fom GES Guy SOAR RR CAMEO GE a VS ae 20,000,000 
PO ta Le prope nacamee meta tes) rh \s Gia Ate aN Ste trae $700,000,000 
To the above we must add the amount Congress 
SOE ODTIntes MrOuM cit OLCEIMent-.\.' sess eea cies ate 10,000,000 
OE LL a eee eee eee ek sacs a des y oa eee tatemmnene $710,000,000 


1 Recent semiofficial computations show that the Treasury has lost 
close to $2,000,000,000 from the revenue on liquor since 1919, based on 
former rates of revenue. 


242 SELECTED "ARTICLES 


We pay for liquor under the Volstead Act: 


Whisky x (prescription)? yusncek tte ae teem $77,500,000 

Bootleg boone mri. \t)s.SSah a taht lem Meee ohh eeree 1,600,000,000 

Wine ‘(legitimate and otherwise) .........-...45.. 400,000,000 — 
CU OtALBMN Re cs So, Cees ae oth aa) bo ciety state nae $2,077,500,000 


Where have we landed? We have discovered that 
the country is out $710,000,000 annually to support a 
$2,077,500,000 illegal industry—another grand total of 
$2,787 ,900,000 annual cost under prohibition enforce- 
ment. 


STAGGERING Cost oF NECESSARY ENFORCEMENT 


We have not endeavored to make an accurate sta- 
tistical presentation, but every figure is substantial; for, 
at each step, we have demonstrated that these figures 
are conservative. We might have tried to figure the 
millions that government does not collect from boot- 
leggers’ incomes. ‘The amount collected in fines—less 
than $3,000,000 in criminal cases for the year ending 
June 30, 1922—is infinitesimal compared with what the 
profits of the bootleggers actually totaled. We might 
have gone into that item of sugar more closely for we 
have just passed through a period of high prices during 
which the housewives boycotted sugar. We have not 
taken into consideration the costs of trial and punish- 
ment of the 65,760 criminal and thirty-five hundred civil 
cases that were instituted last year in the Federal courts 
-—the figures do not include arrests by state and mu- 
nicipal authorities—and which necessitated appointment 
of new Federal judges. 

The greatest difficulty in enforcing prohibition is the 
money cost. To create a Federal police force large 
enough to maintain anything that might be called suc- 
cessful prohibition enforcement, would require as much 
money as the present cost of the rest of the Federal 
government, including the United States army and navy 
—more than $3,500,000,000 a year! 


PROHIBITION 243 


In the complex of law enforcement, what is the 
attitude of the people so far as prohibition is concerned? 
Psychologists will please reply. 


DECLARATION OF THE AMERICAN 
FEDERATION OR GLCABOR * 


WHEREAS: Great dissatisfaction is manifested 
throughout our country among all classes against the 
Volstead enforcement law; and 


WHueErEAS: Many of our people were of the impres- 
sion that with the adoption of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment it would not exclude the nation’s national beverage, 
that of wholesome beer; and 


WHEREAS: The drastic Volstead law has brought 
about the wholesale illicit manufacture of whisky and 
other strong alcoholic liquors or concoctions, which has 
resulted in the deaths of hundreds of our citizens, and 
has impaired the sight of thousands of others, due to 
the drinking of concoctions containing wood and de- 
natured alcohol; and 


WHEREAS: This deplorable condition has made the 
Volstead enforcement law unpopular with the vast ma- 
jority of our citizens; therefore, be it 


RESOLVED: That the American Federation of Labor, 
in the forty-first annual convention, assembled in Den- 
ver, Colorado, declares itself in favor of modification of 
the Volstead law, so as to permit the manufacture and 
sale of a national beverage of wholesome beer; and, be 
it further 


RESOLVED: That the officers and Executive Council 
of the American Federation of Labor be and are hereby 
directed to do everything within their power to have 
the contents of this resolution carried into effect. 


1 Adopted by the American Federation of Labor, Denver, Colorado, 
PMN eM2s i LO2s. 


244 SELECTED ARTICLES 


THE FAR-FLUNG PROHIBITION 
BATTLE SEINE, 


The Christmas battle between the rum-runners and 
the enforcement agents is on. By land, by sea, by air, 
the effort to run the prohibition blockade is under way. 
There is an east front and a west front; a north and 
a south front. The problem which prohibition officials 
are called upon to cope with is indicated as follows: 

Rum fleets anchored off Long Island and the Jersey 
coast have been reinforced by ships heavily laden for the 
holiday trade. To the north a mild December and the 
absence of snow have held open scores of unguarded 
Canadian border roads across which are passing fleets 
of automobiles and motor trucks, full of contraband. 

In Pennsylvania, where there are wide open saloons 
in several large cities of the state, the product is mainly 
domestic and consists of beer carted out from breweries 
careless of their Federal licenses to brew near-beer. West 
of the Keystone state, in Cleveland, Toledo, Milwaukee 
and Chicago, those who plan an illegal Christmas look 
to the Great Lakes for their supply. 

Determined to peddle their wares in Baltimore and 
Washington, rum-runners are active on the Potomac 
River and in Chesapeake Bay, where mosquito fleets of 
motor boats dart in and out of the broken shore line 
with cargoes from foreign ships anchored off the Vir- 
ginia Capes. Besides, a flood of moonshine is threatened 
by negro bootleggers from Maryland and Virginia. In 
the Carolinas Georgia bootleggers look to the mountain 
stills and the coastal inlets for large supplies. 

From Nassau, Cuba and the West Indies rum-runners 
are attempting to get by the scattered coast guard on the 
Florida and Gulf coast. 

On the southern boundary there are fifteen hundred 
miles of sparsely settled border between Brownsville, 


1From New York Times. December 16, 1923. 


PROHIBITION 245 


El Paso, Nogales and San Diego, across which smug- 
glers are trying to transport liquors of European origin 
as well as Mexican brandy, tequila and Chihuahua beer. 
On the west coast the bootleggers of the Pacific slopes 
draw upon the neighboring and legally wet territories 
of Mexico. 


OWE BEC CONTE @ Mars yo li Mis 


The Province of Quebec has adopted a system of 
state control of the sale of all alcoholic beverages, under 
which the distribution of beer and wine is entirely dis- 
associated from the sale of hard liquors—whisky, 
brandy, etc. 

The Quebec Brewers’ Association spent approxi- 
mately $1,000,000 in a campaign of education, extend- 
ing from 1912 to 1919, to bring about the adoption of 
this effective temperance system. 

The saloon or bar—as it was known in Canada and 
the United States—has entirely disappeared, and for it 
there has been substituted the tavern, under license by 
the government, in which beer only is sold for consump- 
tion on the premises. 

There is no bar in the beer tavern. Customers are 
served seated at tables. There is neither drunkenness 
nor disorder in the taverns, and Chief of Police 
Belangér of Montreal is authority for the statement that 
he has never had to send a police officer to a tavern. 
The city of Montreal, with a population of more than 
eight hundred thousand, is limited to three hundred 
taverns, and there are only five hundred in the entire 
province. 

Beer is also sold in case lots to the family trade by 
licensed grocery stores, and served with meals by licensed 
hotels and restaurants. Wine is also served with meals 

1From “A Report on the Quebec Beer and Wine System with Par- 


ticular Respect to Its Effects on Temperance,” by Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 
St. Louis, Mo., October, 1923. p. 2. 


246 SELECTED ARTICLES 


in licensed hotels and restaurants, but is not sold other- 
wise at retail except at the stores of the Quebec Liquor 
Commission. 

All hard liquors are sold only at the stores operated 
by the Quebec Liquor Commission, a state body. Only 
one bottle at a time may be purchased. 

From the revenue standpoint the Quebec system 
produces annually $4,000,000 for the Province of Que- 
bec, used for good roads and schools, and $5,000,000 
for the Dominion government. 

The Quebec system of control has solved the liquor 
question from the standpoint of temperance, crime, re- 
spect for law and effect on government. When its 
highly beneficial and satisfactory results are contrasted 
with the disastrous results of the American experiment, 
all fair-thinking people must be forced to the conclusion 
that here is a system of constructive control and that 
the adoption of a similar method in the United States 
would be productive of equally satisfactory results. 


PROHIBITION IS NOW A MORAL ISSUE? 


The time has fully come to speak one’s mind on the 
subject of the shocking and immoral conditions which 
have been brought about by the Eighteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States and by the legis- 
lation enacted pursuant to the provisions of that amend- 
ment. That the amendment itself is not only a violation 
of the principles upon which our government rests, but 
a revolutionary departure from them, is generally ad- 
mitted. It is defended on the ground that it served an 
overmastering moral purpose. It is necessary to examine 


1 By Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University. Ab- 
stract of an address before the Missouri Society at New York, April 29, 
1924. Copies of this address may be obtained by addressing Box 213, 
P.O, Sub-station 84, New York City. 


PROHIBITION 247 


the results from the point of view of public and private 
morals. 

This amendment introduces for the first time a specific 
and almost unamendable and irrepealable police regula- 
tion into a document whose purpose was to set up a 
form of government and to define and limit its powers. 
If the Constitution had been amended by adding to the 
powers of the Congress, as set out in Article I, Section 8, 
the additional power to regulate or even to prohibit the 
manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors 
within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation 
thereof from the United States and all territory subject 
to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes, it 
would have been a sufficiently radical step; but it 
would not then have been possible, as it is now, for an 
insignificant minority of the people to keep upon the 
statute book any congressional enactment made pursuant 
to this new grant of power which had proved ineffica- 
cious, unenforceable, or immoral. Passing lightly over 
the fact that there probably are not many territories sub- 
ject to the jurisdiction of the United States for beverage 
purposes—a fact which the framers of the amendment 
in their haste appear to have overlooked—we are now 
confronted by a situation without parallel in the history 
of the government. Unless the conscience of the Ameri- 
can people is wholly duiled and unless their moral sense 
has lost all power of expression, they will not long per- 
mit this condition to continue without emphatic and 
effective revolt. 

As a result of the Eighteenth Amendment, we now 
have a nation-wide traffic in intoxicating liquors which 
is unlicensed, illicit, illegal, and untaxed. We have in- 
troduced intoxicating liquor into parts of the country 
from which it had well-nigh disappeared and in hundreds 
of communities we have multiplied many times the saloon, 
if a saloon be defined as a place where intoxicating liquor 
may be purchased whether for consumption on the premi- 
ses or not. We have brought about a situation in which 


248 SHE CT HIM AI Cle bs 


we challenge the ingenuity and sporting instinct of mil- 
lions of young persons to test whether or not they can 
safely violate a law for which they have no respect. We 
have invited and induced a spirit and a habit of lawless- 
ness which are quite without precedent and which reach 
from the highest ranks in the nation’s life to the lowest 
and most humble. If the Anti-Saloon League on the one 
hand and the bootlegger and persistent law-breaker on 
the other, had conspired together to bring nominal glory 
to the first and certain profit to the second, they would 
have united in urging the precise course of action which 
has been followed. 

The reason why the national prohibition law is not 
enforced is that it cannot be enforced. The reason why 
it cannot be enforced is that it ought not to have been 
passed. In its attempted forcible interference with the 
food and drink and medicine of the people, it is a form 
of oppression to which a free people will never submit in 
silence. No liberal can possibly defend it. The unmoral 
conditions which have followed the ratification of the 
Fighteenth Amendment are the direct and natural results 
of its own immorality. The principle involved cannot be 
better stated than in the words which President Coolidge 
used in his address to the American Bar Association at 
San Francisco on August 10, 1922. He then said: “In a 
Republic, the law reflects rather than makes the standard 
of conduct. The attempt to dragoon the body when the 
need is to convince the soul will end in revolt.” 

The Volstead Act states a conscious lie when it defines 
as intoxicating that which everyone knows is the con- 
trary. It oversteps the authority of the Eighteenth 
Amendment when it attempts to interfere with the use 
of alcoholic liquor as medicine, and it affronts, if it does 
not invade, the Bill of Rights at every possible point. 
The latest and most alarming suggestion, made on the 
floor of the House of Representatives, is that the Eigh- 
teenth Amendment, coming as it does after the Bill of 


PROHIBITION 249 


Rights, repeals any part of that historic document with 
which it may be in conflict. 

There are those who would be satisfied with urging 
that the Volstead Act be brought into accord with the 
Eighteenth Amendment and that the untruths and law- 
lessness be taken out of it. That program is good so far 
as it goes, but it is the Eighteenth Amendment itself 
which offends and which is the corner-stone of the whole 
vast immoral, degrading and law-breaking system that 
has been built upon it. 

The appeal is now to be made to the men and women 
of religious faith, of moral principle, and of public spirit 
to cast off the scales that have closed and darkened their 
eyes and to face the terrible facts that confront them on 
every hand. Senators and representatives in Congress 
and members of state legislatures nonchalantly vote for 
prohibitory legislation and quickly betake themselves for 
refreshment to a drink of alcoholic liquor. Judges sen- 
tence men to fine and imprisonment for having been de- 
tected in doing what other judges do without detection. 
A voluble and sarcastic advocate of strict enforcement of 
the prohibitory law himself joins in a toast, drunk with 
intoxicating liquor, which he offers with these words: 
“Prohibition: it is good for the other fellow!’ When- 
ever you hear a public officer or a candidate for elective 
office cry out with particular unction for law enforcement, 
tap him on the hip. Such is the pass of hypocrisy, of 
double-dealing, of cowardice, and of public and private 
immorality to which we have been reduced by the policy 
of prohibition. 

What can one say of those who, while calling them- 
selves ministers of the Gospel of Christ——God save the 
mark!—pass resolutions of confidence in a convicted 
criminal, tender him a substantial gift of money wrung 
from their deluded dupes, and roll their eyes to heaven 
giving thanks that they are not as other men. In what 
respect do they differ from those hysterical and un- 


250 SELECTED, ARFIGLES 


balanced women who shower convicted murderers with 
flowers and sweetmeats? How dare they stand in a pul- 
pit called Christian and so violate both the practice and 
the teachings of Jesus Christ himself? 

A prominent citizen of a neighboring state, who was 
publicly upholding and defending the prohibitory laws 
and daily violating them in his own domestic life, was 
asked how he reconciled his practice with his profession. 
He answered with unblushing cynicism, “We like the 
hypocrisy of it; it pleases us to have these prohibitory 
laws on the statute book.” — 

Politicians without exception assure us that there can 
be no issue made of the prohibition question, that any 
party will go down to destruction which touches it, and 
that present conditions must be permitted to exist and to 
develop as they are. They insist that the repeal of the 
Eighteenth Amendment is impossible, and that there can 
be no cure for the conditions that have followed its rati- 
fication. In other words, their estimate of the intelligence 
and morality of the American people is that they are too 
ignorant, too stupid, and too cowardly to rise to their 
feet and with burning moral indignation to sweep from 
power this whole army of impostors, fanatics, and un- 
worthy spokesmen of the public will. They forget, how- 
ever, that while party platforms may avoid the moral 
question raised by prohibition, political issues are primar- 
ily made not by platform declarations but by the people 
themselves. 

There was originally no moral question raised by the 
policy of prohibition. It is no more moral or immoral to 
drink or to refrain from drinking alcoholic liquor than it 
is to eat or to refrain from eating roast beef or buck- 
wheat cakes. Drunkenness, like gluttony, is a vice be- 
cause it shows lack of self-control and the excessive use 
of something which may in itself be not only innocent but 
beneficial. The provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment 
reflect a state of mind, a condition of opinion, and have 


PROHIBITION 251 


nothing more to do with morals than have the provisions 
of the Seventeenth Amendment, which relates to the 
mode of electing senators. Now, however, a distinct and 
burning moral issue has been raised by the results of the 
prohibition policy. That issue is whether the American 
people will have the intelligence, the courage, and the 
persistent strength to strike from their Constitution and 
their statute book the hateful cause of all this demoral- 
ization, and, following with the well tested experience of 
their neighbors in Canada, to adopt a rational, a moral, 
and a practical method of abolishing the saloon, of regu- 
lating and restricting the liquor traffic, of removing the 
chief cause of lawlessness among us, and of greatly pro- 
moting the cause of temperance and good morals both 
public and private. 

On this whole question as it affects our nation, let 
me read a very striking editorial which appeared in the 
Daily News of Greensboro, North Carolina, on August 
30, 1923, with the title, “The Disregarded Constitution’ : 


The President called upon the Southern Newspaper Pub- 
lishers’ Association for support of the Constitution of the United 
States, and his advice will be received with loud acclaim by many 
men and newspapers who have not the slightest intention of fol- 
lowing it. The Constitution of the United States has become, 
like the tariff, a local issue. In its entirety it is accepted and 
loyally supported nowhere. The. various sections obey such parts 
of it as accord with their sectional ideas and prejudices but 
conveniently forget all about others. 

The southern newspapers, to choose for an example the audi- 
ence to whom the President addressed himself, while they may 
applaud Mr. Coolidge’s utterance, will not therefore support any 
more loyally that part of the Constitution embodied in the 14th 
and 15th Amendments to the original document. Literal appli- 
cation of those amendments is impractical, and every southern 
newspaper knows it. Why be mealy-mouthed about it? Why 
proclaim our undying loyalty to the Constitution when we are 
thoroughly convinced that in this particular the Constitution is 
wrong and it would be criminal folly to try to enforce it liter- 
ally? 

Why not be honest? Why, because absolute honesty would 
require that we accord the same privilege of critical selection to 
others. We should be estopped from abusing New York for 


252 SELECTED PARGIGEES 


refusing to accept the 18th Amendment. We should be estopped 
from abusing California for rejecting the Bill of Rights. 

As long as one can purchase intoxicants without difficulty 
in the north; as long as the right of free speech is denied in 
the west; as long as negroes are not permitted to exercise all 
the rights of citizenship in the south, there are at least three 
large rents in the document which nobody is disposed to mend. 
The south is willing to sew up the holes that the north and 
west have made. The north and west are equally ready to 
grant everything to negroes. The north shares our horror at 
the suppression of free speech in the west, and the west is as 
indignant as we are at the wetness of the north. But the trouble 
is that each section must first cast the beam out of its own 
eyes before it can see clearly to cast the mote out of its neigh- 
bor’s eye; and that none of us is willing to do. 

In addition there has arisen recently a disposition to make 
still another hole in the Constitution by demolishing the Ist 
Amendment through an indirect establishment of religion. This 
is by no means sectional. It has appeared in a number of states 
widely separated geographically.’ It is the proposal to limit by 
statute the liberty of teachers in state-supported educational in- 
stitutions to teach scientific truth. The only reason ad- 
vanced for this astounding proposal is the fear that the 
spread of scientific truth might result in the overthrow of 
certain current religious beliefs. Therefore the law is invoked 
for the protection of these threatened religious beliefs. By sup- 
pressing the teaching of science it is proposed to establish these 
beliefs forever; which is a procedure explicity forbidden in the 
1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 

The fact is that, in spite of our vociferous lip-service, the 
Constitution is held in exceedingly slight esteem in this country. 
We cheer President Coolidge’s words enthusiastically; but we 
don’t believe them for a moment. 


This is an exceptionally frank and helpful expression 
of opinion from a responsible source. It tears the mask 
of hypocrisy from the face of those who, while for fifty 
years systematically disregarding the Fourteenth and Fif- 
teenth Amendments, now cry for the strictest possible en- 
forcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. It illustrates 
once more that a large part of the demand for law en- 
forcement of which we are hearing so much, is really not 
a demand for law enforcement at all, but rather for that 
particular form of lawlessness to which those who raise 
the clamor are chiefly addicted. It is high time to re- 
buke as it deserves the insolent and vulgar classification 


PROHIBITION 253 


of our citizens into wets and drys—unless, indeed, the 
word dry is in this instance the appropriate designation 
of those whose influence is exerted to develop among us 
rivers whose streams, like some of those in Arizona, flow 
unobserved and underground. 

Our sad experience with the futile attempt at Federal 
prohibition does not stand alone. The London Times on 
March 27 prints a dispatch from Christiania reporting 
the decision of the Cabinet Council to introduce a bill in 
the national legislature of Norway to repeal the prohibi- 
tion laws. The conditions which have arisen under those 
laws in Norway are described as insupportable. Effec- 
tive control has been found to be impossible, and the gov- 
ernment declares that the only way out of the present 
state of things is to repeal prohibition and to resume the 
fight against the drinking evil by voluntary abstinence 
and the institution of public control over the turnover of 
alcoholic liquors. This is to travel the road of sense, of 
practical effectiveness, and of true temperance. Only 
four days later the London Times again reported that in 
Finland, owing to the disastrous effects of the prohibition 
act both on the general level of sobriety and in encourag- 
ing smuggling and other forms of law-breaking, anti- 
prohibition is on its way to become an election issue and 
that candidates at the next legislative election would be 
definitely pledged to the repeal of the prohibition act. 

Such a situation as confronts us in the United States 
is intolerable, solely and exclusively from the standpoint 
of morals. It has nothing to do with the appetite for 
alcoholic liquor, whether that appetite be controlled or 
uncontrolled. It has nothing to do with local measures, 
prohibitory in character, which respond to the substan- 
tially unanimous sentiment of a local community. It has 
to do with the attempt to turn and twist our Federal form 
of government until it becomes an instrument of tyranny 
and to destroy the Constitution of the United States by 
injecting into it mere police regulations which, however 


254 SELECTED aR ARGS 


important any one of them may seem to be at any par- 
ticular time, are of quite subsidiary consequence when 
contrasted with the provisions upon which our form of 
government rests. 

There is a close parallel between slavery and prohibi- 
tion. Slavery was not long ago proclaimed as the prin- 
cipal cause of civilization, indeed as the sole cause. It 
was defended and extolled as a divine institution by pre- 
cisely the same type of clerical mind that defends and 
extols prohibition. It ate out the vitals of our nation for 
over a half-century, just as prohibition is doing now. It 
was incorporated in our constitutional system, and even 
as late as 1861 the attempt was made to amend the Con- 
stitution that it could never be abolished. Even after 
Lincoln had been inaugurated and the Civil War had 
begun, this proposal was ratified by the states of Ohio, 
Maryland and Illinois. Men and women of the highest 
intelligence and noble character who hated slavery were 
called upon to accept it and to obey the laws based upon 
it because they were the law. Precisely the same argu- 
ments are urged in support of the Eighteenth Amendment 
and the Volstead Act, and precisely the same attitude is 
taken toward them. My own feeling toward prohibition 
is exactly the feeling which my parents and my grand- 
parents had toward slavery. I look upon the Volstead 
Act precisely as they looked upon the Fugitive Slave 
Law. Like Abraham Lincoln, I shall obey these laws so 
long as they remain upon the statute book; but, like 
Abraham Lincoln, I shall not rest until they are repealed. 
The issue is one of plain, simple, unadorned morality. 

With these obstacles to temperance and orderly gov- 
ernment out of the way, with the police power of the 
states, which should never have been diminished or in- 
vaded, restored to them, it will be quickly possible to build 
a constructive policy upon the foundation of the system 
which works satisfactorily in the Province of Quebec and 
in Sweden. By this system the saloon is abolished be- 


PROHIBITION 255 


cause it is made not only illegal but unprofitable, the con- 
sumption of alcoholic liquor is greatly diminished, the 
food and drink and medicines of citizens in their own 
homes are not interfered with, and the immense revenues 
now illicitly appropriated by the bootlegger are restored 
to the public treasury and the crushing burden of the 
taxpayer greatly relieved. 

With all this experience before them, those who re- 
main satisfied to demand the enforcement of a demon- 
strably unenforceable law must accept responsibility for 
being the silent partners of the bootlegger and a power- 
ful contributing cause to that spirit of lawlessness which 
threatens the foundations of our whole social and politi- 
cal order. 


BRIEF EXCERPTS 


The Volstead Act is being generally violated—Louis 
Graves. Atlantic Monthly. 127: 525. April, 1921. 


More people are alcoholic because they are feeble- 
minded than vice versa.—Dr. Henry H. Goddard. Feeble- 
mindedness, Its Causes and Consequences. p. 402. 


No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.—Thomas 
Jefferson in a letter to Monsieur de Neuville dated De- 
cember 13, 1818. 


Beer containing three per cent by volume of alcohol, 
or 5.25 per cent of proof spirit, is a non-intoxicating 
liquid Dr. H. M. Vernon. British Journal of Inebriety. 
18:70. October, 1920. 


The saloon is frequently the only place in which 
the poor man can be sure of warmth, comfort, and 
companionship.—Keport of the Commission to Investi- 
gate Drunkenness in Massachusetts. 1914. p. 34. 


The definition of an intoxicating beverage contained 
in the Volstead Act is not an honest or a common 


256 SELECTED ARTICLES 


sense one.—Governor Alfred E. Smith. Memorandum 
on Approval of Bill to Repeal the Mullin-Gage Law. 
June I, 1923. 


Taking its toll of thousands and thousands of lives 
by slow poisoning, prohibition is a breeder of contempt 
for law and a menace to the country.—Alonzo G. Hink- 
ley, Judge of the Supreme Court. Buffalo Evening News. 
December 19, 1923. 


Neither the prohibitionists nor any one else appears 
to be willing to pay the price of effective federal en- 
forcement: hundreds of millions for spies in every city 
block and village and wooded valley—New Republic 
(editorial). June 14, 1922. 


The disregard of the national prohibition law, en- 
couraging as it does a contempt for law in general 
seems to many observers to constitute an evil that out- 
weighs any incidental benefits-—Loms Graves. Atlantic 
Monthly. 127: 527. April, 1921. 


The Volstead Act serves merely as a source of cor- 
ruption and intemperance in every community where a 
considerable body of citizens remain unconverted to the 
policy of political regulation of their personal habits.— 
Freeman. 7: 412. July 11, 1923. 


There is no escaping the conclusion from the mass 
of available evidence, that the enforcement of prohibition 
has created a demand for, and produced a traffic in, 
habit-forming drugs among a dangerously large propor- 
tion of the lower classes in the South.—Dr. Edward H. 
Wiliams. The Question of Alcohol. p. 28. 


Accompanying the decline of personal liberty there 
has been an increased disrespect for the law. Those 
who are rebellious and decline to acquiesce with the 


PROHIBITION 257 


present trend and still insist on their individual rights 
are in the minority—Sylvan H, Lauchheimer of Balti- 
more, President Maryland State Bar Association. 


Prohibition at its best has never absolutely prohibited, 
it has merely reduced somewhat the consumption per 
head by the population; at its worst it has tended to 
increase consumption per head by reason of a well- 
understood trait of human psychology.—Raymond Pearl 
im Starling, Ernest H. The Action of Alcohol on Man. 


Parecrd. 


A large part of the community has always attributed 
many criminal acts to intoxicating drinks. I am con- 
vinced that with such crimes as murder, burglary, rob- 
bery, forgery, and the like, alcohol has had little to do. 
Petty things, like disorderly conduct, are often caused 
by intoxicating liquor, and these land a great many 
temporarily in jail, but these acts are really not criminal. 
—Clarence Darrow. Crime, Its Cause and Treatment. 


Deal? fs 


If I am to deal with prohibition, there is no doubt 
of the first thing to be said about it. The first thing 
to be said about it is that it does not exist. It is to 
some extent enforced among the poor; at any rate, it 
was intended to be enforced among the poor; though 
even among them I fancy it is much evaded. . . Pro- 
hibition never prohibits. It never has in history; not 
even in Moslem history; and it never will—G. K. 
Chesterton. What I Saw in America. p. I4I. 


It is generally agreed by students of the municipal 
police problem in this country that a very large part 
of the police corruption and inefficiency for which 
American cities have acquired an unenviable reputation 
is traceable to charging the regular police with this func- 
tion of enforcing standards of morals with which in 


258 SELECTEDVARTIGLES 


many cases a large portion of the population is not in 
sympathy.—Herman G. James. Municipal Functions. 


p. 30. 


“Dry” men are more critical of each other, more self-_ 
conscious, and are harder, drabber in speech. Iced 
water, ice cream, icy eyes, icy words. Gone the mellow- 
ness, generosity, good humor, good nature of life. Enter 
the will-bound, calculating, material, frigid human 
machine. Strange that the removal of this thing, 
supposed to pander to the animal in us, makes one 
feel less a man and more an animal, above all, an ant. 
—Ferdinand Tuohy. Literary Digest. 64:52. January 
17, 1920. 


Many laws which interfere with the habits, customs, 
and beliefs of a large number of people, like the prohi- 
bition laws, never receive the assent of so large a per- 
centage as to make people conscious of any wrong in 
violating them, and therefore people break them when 
they can. Often this class of laws is enforced upon 
offenders who believe the law is an unwarrantable in- 
terference with their rights, and thus causes convictions 
where no moral turpitude is felt——Clarence Darrow. 
Crime, Its Cause and Treatment. p. 133. 


The administration of the federal prohibition en- 
forcement division has been an entire failure, resulting 
not only in serious injury to legitimate industry, but in 
reality adding bootleggers. This arraignment of Prohibi- 
tion Commissioner Roy A. Haynes and his predecessors 
was made today in a report of the committee on legisla- 
tion of the National Wholesale Druggists Association, 
now holding its fiftieth annual convention here. The 
report, which met with the unanimous approval of the 
delegates, including those from the American Chemical 
Society, was submitted by C. M. Kline-—New York 
Times. September 24, 1924. 


PROHIBITION 259 


In defining intoxicant and in fixing the maximum 
alcoholic content which may legally be present in bev- 
erages, the Volstead act does not represent an honest, or 
fair, or reasonable interpretation of the constitutional 
amendment. The widespread disrespect for the extreme 
features of the Volstead Enforcement act has contributed 
mightily to engendering widespread disregard for the 
majesty of law and order in general, and that this result 
is a perfectly normal, natural and unavoidable result of 
a piece of legislation involving such drastic and fanatical 
phases. As a practical measure, the Volstead Enforce- 
ment act in its severity is a failure. In spite of millions 
lavished in the attempt, in spite of an army of political 
appointees and a liquor navy, it is not being enforced. 
It cannot be enforced and it will never be enforced.— 
Professor Charles L. Durham. New York Times. Sep- 
tember 21, 1924. 

Wayne B. Wheeler, general counsel for the Anti- 
Saloon League of America, asserted that the best 
Christmas gift to the American people was the one 
brought by prohibition. Mr. Wheeler claimed that in 
the last four years of its operation national prohibition 
had saved 873,000 lives. No one, however, with any 
knowledge of the facts would lay this entire saving to 
prohibition or to any other single item. Most of the 
saving in human lives was caused by the prevention of 
transmissible diseases, reduction 1n infant mortality and 
to the intensive campaigns which have been carried on 
for many years by the United States Public Health 
Service, State and Municipal Health officials, by large 
national organizations, such as the National Tuberculosis 
Association, the American Social Hygiene Association, 
the American Child Health Association, the American 
Public Health Association and by insurance companies. 
—Lee K. Frankel, New York Times. January 7, 1924. 


Whatever may be our individual ideas on the sub- 
ject of temperance and prohibition, we believe that there 


260 SELECTEDPARTIGLES 


can be no doubt that this law tends to debauch and cor- 
rupt the police force. It interferes with the liberty and 
private life of moral, law-abiding citizens. It even goes 
so far as to brand good men as felons because, in their 
own conscience, they desire to indulge in personal habits 
in which they find no harm. It has not checked the 
misuse of intoxicating liquors, but it has seriously ham- 
pered their proper use. We feel that it can never be 
enforced, because it lays down rules of private conduct 
which are contrary to the intelligence and general mor- 
ality of the community. It is an attempt by a body of 
our citizenship thinking one way to interfere with the 
private conduct of another body thinking another way.— 
Unanimous report of a grand jury m Kings County, N.Y. 
(the city of Brooklyn). New York Globe. December 22, 
1922. 


He [President Wilson] felt that it was unreasonable 
for Congress, in the Volstead Act, to declare any bev- 
erage containing an excess of one half of one per cent 
of alcohol intoxicating and that to frame a law which 
arbitrarily places intoxicating and non-intoxicating bev- 
erages within the same classification was openly to in- 
vite mental resentment against it. He was of the opinion 
that it required no compromise or weakening of the 
Eighteenth Amendment in order to deal justly and fairly 
with the serious protests that followed the enactment 
into law of the Volstead Act. He was, therefore, in 
favor of permitting the manufacture and sale, under 
proper governmental regulations, of light wines and 
beers, which action in his opinion would make it much 
easier to enforce the amendment in its essential par- 
ticulars and would help to end the illicit traffic in 
liquor which the Volstead Act fostered by its very 
severity. This would put back of the enforcement of 
the Eighteenth Amendment the public sentiment always 
necessary to the execution of laws.—Joseph P. Tumulty. 
Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him. p. 409-10. 


PROHIBITION 261 


At the Senate Committee hearings, when the Vol- 
stead Act was under consideration, the results of many 
exhaustive tests were presented. These tests consisted 
mainly of careful observations of the effect upon many 
subjects after drinking beer with a percentage of 2.75 
alcohol by weight, equivalent to over 3 per cent by vol- 
ume. These tests were conducted by some of the best 
known medical and scientific authorities in the country, 
including Professor Hare, who for 28 years has been 
the professor of therapeutics in the Jefferson Medical 
College of Philadelphia; by John Marshall, Professor 
of Chemistry and Toxicology in the University of Penn- 
sylvania for over 20 years and Dean of the Faculty of 
Medicine there for ten years. Tests were also made 
by various others whose positions in the country can- 
not be successfully assailed. These men all testified 
that, after numerous tests upon all classes of human 
subject, they were convinced it was impossible to be- 
come intoxicated by a consumption of beer with this 
percentage of alcohol.—Senator Walter E. Edge. Annals 
of the American Academy. 109: 75. September, 1923. 


We believe the Eighteenth Amendment is an unwar- 
ranted intrusion upon the rights of the States. The use 
of the Constitution as an instrument for sumptuary legis- 
lation does violence to the purposes and objects of the 
founders of the Republic, and is destructive of the basic 
scheme of government therein provided. The unwisdom 
and futility of departing from the plan of government 
thus given us by our forefathers is demonstrated by the 
consequent results. In the wake of the amendment has 
trailed corruption of government on a scale unparalleled 
in the history of the country, a lack of enforcement and 
general disrespect for all law. These attendant evils 
strike at the very foundation of the Government and re- 
quire quick and courageous efforts at correction. 

We assert that the Volstead act and the Hobart En- 
forcement act of the State are fanatical and unreasonable 


262 SELECTED ARTICLES 


interpretations of the amendment and lack the sanction 
of popular approval. 

We demand immediate action by Congress that the 
Volstead Act be so amended as to permit the manufac- 
ture and sale of wines and beer in order to provide a mea- 
sure of relief from a condition of lawlessness which has 
been created by the passage of this act. We call attention 
to the open and flagrant violations of this and similar laws 
as providing that the United States Government is unable 
to enforce a law which has not the support of a large 
proportion of the people of the United States. We be- 
lieve a continuation of such a situation breeds contempt 
for ali law and order and tends to engender a new class 
of criminals who are preying upon the people of this 
country. 

In order that New Jersey may not continue a party 
to such a demoralizing situation, we demand a repeal of 
the State enforcement act, believing that through such a 
repeal notice will be given to the people of New Jersey 
and to the people of the United States that our State has 
done everything in its power to correct the evil which is 
recognized to exist—New Jersey State Platform of the 
Democratic Party for 1924. 


Our committee was advised that, taking the country 
as a whole, 44 per cent of the time of the United States 
district attorneys is devoted to prohibition cases. This 
is not a mere estimate. It is the analysis of replies to 
a questionnaire addressed by the department to all dis- 
trict attorneys throughout the country. One of the 
singular and worth while mentioning coincidences of 
this condition is that the district attorneys in prohibition 
States—you know I mean States where prohibition was 
in etfect before the adoption of the eighteenth amend- 
ment—are required to devote a great deal more of their 
time and energy to enforce the Volstead law than is 
expected of them in the States that did not adopt pro- 
hibition voluntarily but had it forced upon them. 


PROHIBITION 263 


Take my own State of Massachusetts, for instance, 
which now and then the prohibitionists refer to as being 
composed of stubborn and lawless people. In the old 
Bay State only 30 per cent of the time of the United 
States district attorney was devoted to prohibition mat- 
ters last year, while in the southern district of prohi- 
bition, Alabama 90 per cent of the district attorney’s 
time was used up in the same cause. North Carolina 
is one of the old prohibition States and it stood for 
the dry law long before the adoption of the eighteenth 
amendment, and yet last year 70 per cent of the time 
of Uncle Sam’s attorneys in that State had to be given 
to cases brought under the Volstead Act. In prohibi- 
tion West Virginia it was 70 per cent in the southern 
district and 60 per cent in the northern district. In 
Arizona, 60 per cent; in Arkansas, 50 per cent; in south- 
ern Florida, 60 per cent; yes, and in Kentucky, the home 
State of my friend Mr. BarKLEy, one of the most 
eminent “drys” in this House, it averages 75 per cent. 
In northern Mississippi it runs to 55 per cent, and in 
the southern part of that beautifully dry State it is 
over 50 per cent. Wyoming, which has always been a 
garden spot of the drys, requires their United States 
attorneys to spend 45 per cent of their time prosecuting 
violators of the sacrosanct Volstead law. And Georgia, 
the driest State in this whole House [laughter], needs 
them 60 per cent of the time. 

And lo and behold even the State of our brother 
VoLsTEAD demanded 60 per cent of the time of the United 
States attorney to prosecute the bootleggers and the 
moonshiners and the experts who have developed the 
“white mule” industry—James A. Gallivan. Congres- 
sional Record. February 24, 1923. 





NEGATIVE DISCUSSION 





PROHIBITION’S GIFT! 


The best Christmas gift to the American people was 
the one brought by prohibition. A few of the cumulative 
results of four years of sober industry are: 

A cut in the death rate that saved eight hundred 
seventy-three thousand lives, profiting the insurance 
companies and policy holders $678,769,000. 

A decrease in the rate of preventable illness equiva- 
lent to 1,747,950 people continuously ill for one year. 

A reduction in the ratio of drunkenness arrests per 
one hundred thousand population equivalent to five hun- 
dred thousand fewer arrests for drunkenness in 1923 
alone, or over two million fewer in the four dry years. 

A decrease in the penal ratio resulting in twenty 
thousand fewer persons being committed to penal insti- 
tutions in these four years. 

Elimination of intemperance as a cause of poverty, 
releasing $74,000,000 of charity funds for constructive 
work. 

Wiping out 177,790 licensed saloons, around which 
huddled the homes of families whose revenues were 
drained by the liquor leach. 

Over a billion dollars added to our savings accounts 
and over eleven billion dollars to our new life insur- 
ance policies in 1923. 

Increased the taxable wealth of former license cities 
by increasing valuation of former saloon sites. 

Lowered industrial accidents by a quarter of a mil- 
lion annually. 

Made possible vast expenditures on moving pictures, 
athletic equipment, and other wholesome entertainment 
which replaced the saloon. 


1 Statement issued by Wayne B. Wheeler, general counsel, Anti- 
Saloon League of America. January 24, 1923. 


268 SELECTED ARTICEES 


Made roads safer for the four million automobiles 
manufactured last year, many of which were bought by 
former impoverished drinkers. 

Increased home building by two thousand more new 
homes built per month in 1923 than in 1919, in spite 
of higher costs. 

Added a daily Pentecost of three thousand new 
members to the churches. 

Sent throngs of youths and girls to high school and 
college by eliminating the liquor drain on the family 
purse. 

Prohibition was not unaided in creating these bene- 
fits, but only a sober, thrifty and industrious country 
could have wrought these things. 


DRY LAW IS WORKER’S FRIEND* 


Prohibition has been of incalculable benefit to the 
workers in American industry, particularly those in the 
steel industry, and their families, Judge Elbert H. Gary, 
chairman of the Board of the United States Steel Cor- 
poration, declared yesterday in an interview for The 
New York Times at his office, 71 Broadway. 

Based on observation and reports from officials of 
the Steel Corporation in plants throughout the country, 
Judge Gary’s conclusions on the effect of the Volstead 
Act and the various state prohibition enforcement laws 
furnished a convincing argument for the retention of 
complete prohibition. According to Judge Gary, the 
effects of prohibition, despite the admitted violations of 
law in the large cities, have included a decrease in the 
consumption of intoxicating liquor, a decrease in crime 
and poverty, an increase in the health of the workers 
and their families and their savings deposits. 

These advantages to the workers have been coupled 
with an improvement in the working ability and dispo- 
sition of the employees, according to Judge Gary. Even 

2From the New York Times. July 31, 1923. 


PROHIBITION 269 


without the material and moral advantages to its em- 
ployees, Judge Gary said the Steel Corporation would be 
for prohibition, because it pays. 

Judge Gary declared himself against any modifica- 
tion of the prohibition laws. 


Opposes WINES AND BEERS 


“How do you feel about an amendment to the Vol- 
stead Act to permit the manufacture and sale of light 
wines and beer?” he was asked. 

He replied: 


I wouldn’t favor it. Perhaps, if I had been called upon 
to express an opinion in regard to the adoption of the original 
law, 1 might have decided in favor of permitting the manu- 
facture and sale of beer and wine with alcoholic contents small 
enough to make them safe under the opinion of the best medical 
authorities. If I should express the opinion of a layman, which, 
it must be admitted, is not valuable, I should say about four 
per cent of alcoholic content. 

However, as the law was passed in its present form, I 
think it would be a mistake to amend it in favor of light wines 
and beer. | 


_ Judge Gary said that the Steel Corporation, through 
its officers and plant superintendents in many parts of 
the country, had made a close observation of the effects 
of prohibition, even before the adoption of the Federal 
amendment and the enactment of the Volstead Act, by 
watching the results of prohibition laws in the states. 

Judge Gary said: 

Of course, there are always some persons who will object 
to the passage or enforcement of any penal or prohibitory 
law and, as a rule, they are the men who do the most talking on 
the subject; I have no hesitation in saying with emphasis that 
the Volstead act and State laws for prohibiting the manufac- 
ture and sale of intoxicating liquors have been very beneficial 


to the industry of this country and to the workmen connected 
with it and their families. 


Says SAVINGS INCREASE 


While there have been violations of these laws, particularly 
in the larger cities, while there has been illicit manufacture of 
“hootch,” so-called, and while there has been more or less boot- 


270 SHRURC TED MWAIOIGLES 


legging, yet as a total result of the prohibitory laws there has 
been a large decrease in the use of liquor, at least in the vicinity 
of our various plants throughout the country. 

There has been a noteworthy decrease in the number of 
jails, asylums and hospitals. There has been an increase, and a 
large increase, in the bank balances of savings deposits. The 
health of the people has improved. The families of workmen 
are better clothed and better treated. The attendance of the 
workmen and their families at church, of the children in schools 
and of all of them at clean, legitimate, healthful resorts and 
places of amusement, has materially increased. 

The sale and use of automobiles has been largely increased 
by the fact that a large majority of the workmen now prefer 
to take excursions with their families by automobile instead 
of spending their time at the saloons or other places and 
wasting their money in practices that are physically injurious 
instead of beneficial. 

At a meeting of steel men recently, it was stated by one of 
those present that the families of the workmen in the steel 
mills would vote with practical unanimity in favor of total 
prohibition, although some of the husbands might, perhaps, be 
in favor of the sale of beer and light wines. 

All in all, however, there is no doubt that a large pre- 
ponderance of the workmen of this country are in favor of 
the prohibition of the sale and use of all intoxicants from the 
standpoint of good morals, good economics and peaceful social 
relations. 

We should all remember constantly that if any one law is 
broken and the offender is unpunished or unprotected, some 
other person may decide to take the same course with respect 
to another law. It is a simple but important fact that the only 
safety of this country is found in the adoption and enforcement 
of laws which are calculated to protect all the people and which 
discriminate against none. 


Cites BIRMINGHAM 


Judge Gary added that a striking example of the 
favorable effects of prohibition had been shown in the 
improvement in conditions in Birmingham and_ other 
steel towns in Alabama after the passage of a strict state 
prohibition law a year or two before nation-wide pro- 
hibition. Judge Gary said that the acquisition of the 
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by the Steel Corpora- 
tion had been followed by a rapid expansion of its busi- 


PROHIBITION 271 


ness, the Steel Corporation expending about $150,000,000 
in development and improvements. 

This expansion, he said, brought about rapid increase 
in population, and some of the Alabama steel cities took 
on the characteristics of frontier mining towns. Crime 
increased; there were shootings in the streets and a 
general looseness of action on the part of many of the 
steel mill employees. With the passage of the Alabama 
state prohibition law all this changed, he said. A new 
jail, which had been built and filled, became empty and 
had been converted to other uses. The families of the 
workers, both white and negro, are prosperous. The 
children are receiving good schooling, and even a large 
hospital, which the corporation built in Birmingham, 
filled before prohibition, is now half empty. 


PROHIBITION HAS MADE GOOD’ 


In the past two tempestuous years, the numerous false 
wigs and masquerading costumes of the alcohol problem 
have been stripped off, one after another. 

Alcohol isn’t and never was a food. It isn’t essential 
to health, or needed as a medicine. It isn’t necessary 
as a source of revenue. Its taboo does not and will not 
paralyze business, or throw any body of men out of em- 
ployment, or ruin any class of fruit growers or farmers. 

The simple, sole, central and final problem to which 
we have at last come down squarely is, “Can we stand 
the jolts of life’s highway without a narcotic shock- 
absorber? Can we do without a pair of rose-colored, 
spirituous spectacles for occasional wear?” 

Alcohol is not a food, for the simple and sufficient 
reason that, to put it very crudely, it is some thirty times 
as poisonous as it is nourishing. The utmost amount of 
it that we can possibly burn clean and turn into heat 


1 By Dr. Woods Hutchinson. Hearst’s International. 42: 81-4. July, 
1922, 


272 SELECTED ARTICLES 


or work in twenty-four hours is two ounces, while our 
body gas-engine demands the fuel value of sixty-four 
ounces of alcohol (that is, two quarts of alcohol or five 
quarts of raw whisky) every day to keep it running 
properly. So that if we undertook to live on alcohol 
we should have to take our choice between starving to 
death, if we limited ourselves to one-thirty-second of a 
ration, which we would utilize without injury, or speedily 
dying dead drunk (in technical terms, of “acute alcoholic 
intoxication’), if we attempted to engulf our five bottles 
of whisky daily. | 

What a joke alcohol really is, in the way of food, 
may be glimpsed from another point of view in the light 
of our recent experiences. The steady soakers and 
habitual drunkards at one end of the social scale and 
the feather-wits who love to consider themselves fast 
and fashionable, dwellers in the land of Lobsteria and 
baskers in the glare of White Lights, at the other, prob- 
ably drink almost as much as they did before the drought. 
But the overwhelming mass of the 90 per cent of decent 
hard-working, self-respecting citizens all over the country 
are consuming at least 50 per cent and probably nearer 
65 per cent less than they did before the constitutional 
amendment. 

The net result, even after allowing for all the at- 
tempted consumption of home brew high explosives, is 
that less than a third as many tons of good, wholesome, 
nutrituous grains, fruits and roots are being turned into 
alcohol as formerly. As only about one-fourth of the 


total food value, or fuel energy of the barley, corn, © 


apples, grapes, etc., distilled, is recovered in the form 
of alcohol, this means that thousands of tons of nourish- 
ing bread and cereals and appetizing and refreshing fruits 
are placed upon the markets and in the grocers’ windows 
for use upon our tables, without extra charge. 

In other words, even supposing—which is far, far 
from the truth—that all the alcohol produced was con- 


ae 


PROHIBITION 273 


sumed well within the two ounces a day limit of clean 
combustion, the nation has gained four times as much 
food value as it has lost, by wiping out the alcohol in- 
dustry. 

The quality of this saving has been even more im- 
portant than its quantity, for the amount involved is so 
great that the law has practically placed fresh fruit free, 
on every table in the land every day in the year. What 
that means to the health, welfare, and comfort of chil- 
dren can scarcely be over estimated in the light of our 
recent discoveries of the priceless, life-giving value of 
those growth-foods, known as vitamins. These are 
abundant in fresh fruits and fruit juices, but are totally 
destroyed and lost in the processes of fermenting and 
distilling. 

Careful and thorough researches in the laboratory, 
undertaken in a last despairing attempt to discover and 
prove some point of value and wholesomeness in beer 
and wine, have utterly failed to disclose even a trace of 
vitamins in the sparkling cup. 

This satisfactorily explains the apparent paradox that 
the California wine-grape growers who, when the pro- 
hibitory law was first passed, were on the point of dig- 
ging up their vines and putting down their land to some 
other crop, instead of losing their market and facing 
financial ruin, have had, and still have, the keenest de- 
mand for all the grapes they can possibly raise at the 
highest prices that they have ever known. 

The farmer, or merchant, or working man has simply 
taken the money that he had formerly spent upon wine 
and beer for himself, and applied it to buying grapes and 
apples and oranges and butter and milk and ice-cream 
and green vegetables for his wife and children. 

No wine every yet vinted is one-fifth as “strengthen- 
ing” as the grapes out of which it is made, having lost all 
its vitamines and much of its iron; no beer however 
cooling and comforting one-third as nutritious as the 


274 SELECTED MA RTGS 


barley which was destroyed to brew it; no bitter ale or 
stout is half as good a tonic and digestion-improver as 
the malt and hops which have gone into it, or the clear, 
fresh, bitter of grape-fruit or lettuce, or green chicory. 
Indeed, these fresh fruits and green vegetables and 
crimson tomatoes and golden carrots and cabbage and 
alfalfa, with their heavy charge of vitamines, have been 
found to be the only real appetizers, nature’s own di- 
gestive tonics and stomach bitters. 

One of the most heart-broken and genuine outcries 
of distress and dismay that rose toward the sky when 
the shadow of the Great Drought began to threaten was 
the bitter plaint of those worthy mothers in Israel who 
simply couldn’t see how they were going to get along 
without a big bottle of “good old whisky” on the top 
shelf of their home medicine chest. The very idea of 
trying to keep house without it, especially in country 
districts, miles away from a doctor, was like going to 
sleep at night with the door unlocked, or having a funeral 
best parlor without a family Bible. | 

One of the most significant and revealing results of 
the new law and as unexpected as it was interesting, was 
a finding recently reported in our great national medical 
paper, the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Careful inquiry was made covering one hundred 
twelve thousand practicing physicians scattered through- 
out the union, with the startling result that of all this 
number of busy doctors, in active practice in great cities, 
in state capitals, in industrial centers, in country towns 
and in rural districts, only 33,379, less than one-third, 
had thought it worth while to take out permits to pre- 
scribe whisky or brandy for medicinal purposes. A more 
impressive proof of the light esteem in which alcohol 
is held for remedial purposes could hardly have been 
imagined. 

The number of physicians covered is the total licensed 
to practice medicine in the twenty-four states which 





— 


_ ee a ee ee ee ee ee eee 





PROHIBITION 275 


permit doctors to prescribe whisky or brandy; the re- 
maining states by local laws forbid absolutely either the 
writing or the filling of prescriptions for whisky or 
brandy. 

One statement can now be made with absolute sure- 
ness, and that is that all over the country has occurred 
a most unmistakable and striking decline in the general 
death rate from all causes, until it has now reached its 
most triumphant low-water mark in all recorded history. 

Just as a single illustration to serve as a type of all 
the rest, the death rate for the entire United States has 
fallen in the last three years from 14.2 to 12.3 per thou- 
sand, or a saving of over two hundred thousand lives 
per year. Certain of our great cities, New York for 
instance, have actually, in some of their monthly rates, 
fallen below twelve and gone down well toward eleven 
per thousand. 

It is true that this downward trend of the death 
rate was under way before prohibition and therefore we 
cannot claim that.the improvement in public health, which 
has accompanied the years of drought, has been solely 
or even chiefly caused by the lessened use of alcohol. 
Yet it is also true that this downward trend of the death 
rate has been distinctly accelerated since the adoption 
of prohibition. 

So that as far as any lowering of the vigor and 
vitality of the nation from depreciation of our customary 
daily glass of wine and beer is concerned, we can bluntly 
and positively say that the three years have not yielded 
one shred of evidence in its support. 

For example, the disease which has shown the great- 
est falling off in its mortality, is tuberculosis—a disease, 
the chief and almost only weapon against which is 
abundance of good food, good housing and sleep in the 
open air. Saving the money which has been worse than 
wasted on alcohol and applying it to the four or five 
times as much health and nutritive value which it would 


276 SELECTED ARTICLES 


purchase in the form of good food, better housing and 
clothing and sleeping porches, to say nothing of country 
and seaside vacations, and basket suppers in the parks, 
has already cut down the death rate from this dread 
malady nearly 20 per cent and saved the nation tens of 
thousands of lives. 

Almost unanimous reports from public school 
teachers, school and district nurses, welfare workers 
among the poor, intelligent police chiefs and heads of 
charitable organizations, show that never, in all their 
experience, has there been so striking an improvement in 
the feeding, the clothing, the general comfort and wel- 
fare of school children as within the last two years. 

Children are making better progress in their studies, 
not only because they are better clothed and fed, but 
because they come to school less tired and exhausted by 
the various kinds of wage-earning jobs and errands, 
which they are no longer obliged to undertake now that 
fathers turn over four-fifths of their wages to the mothers 
instead of drinking up half or even two-thirds of them 
in the saloons. 

One of the most surprising fiascoes of all the brood- 
ing prophecies of evils sure to be brought down upon 
us by prohibition was that concerned with the use of 
narcotics. 

We happen to be in an unusually favorable position 
to get at the facts of this problem because of the Har- 
rison law and other similar state laws, requiring rigid 
recording and reporting of all narcotic drugs prescribed 
or sold. 

The first six months went by without any change in 
either the number of drug addicts or the amount of 
narcotics consumed. This was explained on the sup- 
position that all habitual users of alcohol to excess had 
been warned so far in advance that they had been able 
to lay in private stocks. 

But a year passed with still no change and finally it 


—— 


PROHIBITION 277 


dawned upon us that the cutting off of alcohol had not 
made the slightest increase in the number of so-called 
“dope fiends.” 

To take a few representative samples! In Milwaukee 
at the city Emergency Hospital, while the number of 
alcoholics treated fell from two hundred fifty-eight in 
1917 to one hundred seventy-one in 1919, the cases of 
drug addictions had increased from seventeen to twenty- 
one, all old habitués. 

In the chief and best-known private sanitorium for 
the care of alcoholic and drug addicts in New England, 
that of Dr. Frederic Taylor, in Boston, the number of 
morphine users, etc., had remained the same and all of 
them had contracted the habit long before prohibition. 

The Department of Health of Los Angeles reports 
that of five hundred registered drug addicts on their 
lists only three claim to have acquired the habit since 
the prohibition law went into effect. 

The Health Commissioner of Denver reports that the 
use of drugs and narcotics has not increased since the 
amendment. 

The Judge of the Municipal Court of Portland, Ore- 
gon, after carefully studying the cases of narcotic in- 
dulgence brought before him, declares that prohibition 
has had no appreciable effect upon these cases. 

This gratifying state of affairs exists to this day 
as attested by scores of reports from every part of the 
country. The only exception is in the city of New York, 
where the known habitual victims of the drug habit have 
slightly increased in number. 

Recently, I attended a meeting of a national medical 
association, whose delegates represented something like 
forty thousand physicians scattered all over the United 
States. I took the opportunity to put the question, 
“What do you think about prohibition? Does it work, 
and if so, how?” to about thirty or forty of the leading 
men from various sections of the country. 


278 SELECTED ARTICLES 


It has been my own estimate that the actual amount 
of liquor consumed by the whole community had been 
cut down 50 per cent to 65 per cent; to my surprise, 
however, the lowest estimate of reduction, was 80 per 
cent and some ran as high as 95 per cent. 

Here in this country we have something like seven- 
teen million souls fully 50 per cent if not 75 per cent of 
whom have been in the habit of using alcoholic beverages 
as regularly and as habitually as we use tea, coffee, or 
milk. The first reaction of these Italian, Slav, Hun- 
garian, Greek new-come citizens was naturally one of 
bewilderment and dismay. What would they do, how 
could they live without their good wine, their strength- 
ening beer, their consoling whisky? 

Many of them promptly dug up ancient recipes, or 
consulted the grandfathers and grandmothers of their 
little cluster and proceeded to manufacture their own 
supplies by home brewing and vinting, with fair success 
and satisfaction. But there was nevertheless a deep and 
disturbing sense of real grievance over what they felt 
was a wanton blow at their personal liberty and at the 
happiness of themselves and their families. 

But it was not long before a change came over the 
vision of Pietro and Alessandro and Eleutheros. 


Da wife say she lika da law, more mon for eggs and butter 
and fruit for da bambini, more shoes for da ragazzo, more 
pretty dresses for Maria Annunziata to wear to high school. 
Me I don’t like eet, but—I get less headache, maka more mon, 
buya da house and lot sooner, taka da wife and children to 
da movies instead sit around in da saloon. 


Today it would hardly be too much to say that there 
is no body of opinion of the same size more solidly and 
loyally behind the new law than that of our latest-come 
and newest-born citizens, whose eager devotion to the 
flag and to what they believe to be the ideals and the 
standards of America, put many of our Pilgrim or blue 
bloods to the blush, | 


PROHIBITION 270 


One of the aspects of the problem into which very 
careful inquiry has been made both in person and by 
letter, is the effect of the new law upon strikes, lock- 
outs, picket riots and labor difficulties generally. Three 
facts seem to stand out fairly definitely and positively. 

First, that the men when deprived of their accustomed 
means of enjoyment and exhilaration were a little more 
ready to resent what they regarded as infringements 
upon their rights. 

Secondly, when they did strike, they were more 
likely to be upon sound and reasonable grounds, and so 
with a better chance of winning. 

The number of strikes and lockouts in this country 
since prohibition has not only been no greater, but dis- 
tinctly less, than in European countries which have no 
prohibition. And such strikes as have occurred have 
been most gratifyingly freer from rioting, bloodshed and 
loss of life than in pre-prohibition days. 

As to the influence of partial alcohol-free conditions 
upon crime, this has been in part obvious and just what 
might have been expected and in part rather eyebrow- 
raising. Naturally, there has been a marked falling off, 
first in plain drunks, second in drunk-and-disorderlies, 
and third in assault-and-batteries; of what might be 
called casual and even convivial misdemeanors. 

Offences which, though sometimes grave, are not 
committed with premeditation and malice aforethought 
come next. The percentage of reduction in these groups 
runs fairly even in the reports from all quarters and 
sources, about 50 to 60 per cent, and as these three great 
groups, drunk, drunk-and-disorderly and assault-and- 
battery make up something like four-fifths of all crimes, 
there has been a well marked thinning of jail popula- 
tions and lightening of the work of our police courts. 

Many jails have been not merely emptied, but closed 
for lack of “patronage” and in several states, it is being 
urged that all criminals for county and municipal 


280 SELECTED A ho Git Ss 


courts be taken care of in state penitentiaries, and the 
local jails, prisons, and workhouses converted to other 
uses. 

A similar and parallel falling off has occurred on the 
medical side in the number of cases of acute alcoholism 
received at our great hospitals and of alcoholic insanity 
at our public asylums. But the most striking diminu- 
tion of all has occurred in the cases of delirium tremens, 
which has fallen off not 50 or 60 but 80 to 90 per cent 
and in some cases disappeared entirely. 

In Boston, for instance, there were twenty thousand 
fewer arrests in the first year following prohibition. 

In Milwaukee, the number of drunk and disorderly 
arrests have fallen from sixteen hundred twenty to seven 
hundred thirty-one since the law, and the total arrests 
from all causes from forty-eight hundred to nineteen 
hundred fifty. 

In a very thoughtful and able summary of the situa- 
tion, the municipal judge of Portland, Oregon, Judge 
Rossman, states that barely 3 to 5 per cent of the men 
brought before him for drunkenness are under thirty and 
the remainder had acquired their thirst long before the 
law. That ihe habitual drunks are coming in less fre- 
quently and that very few young men are becoming con- 
firmed drunkards. “In fact it is so rare for a young man 
to be arrested on a drunk charge that it always evokes 
attention.” 

That in spite of the crime wave in the reaction fol- 
lowing the war, prohibition has a materially lessening 
effect upon crime. 

In Portland, Maine, the total number of arrests for 
all causes has dropped from sixty-four hundred fifty- 
nine in 1917 to sixteen hundred twenty-four in 1920. 

In the great Philadelphia General Hospital, the cases 
of alcoholism have dropped from twenty-three hundred 
twenty-six in 1918 to eight hundred eight in 1920. 

In Cleveland, the deaths from acute alcoholism have 
fallen from seventy-seven in 1917 to eleven in 1920, 


PROHIBITION 281 


But in the remaining 10 to 15 per cent of serious 
crimes, assault-with-intend-to-do-great-bodily-hurt, as- 
sault-with-intent-to-kill, buglary, hold-ups and homicide, 
there has been in many quarters, a distinct increase, 
ranging from 20 per cent for burglary, to 50 per cent 
for hold-ups and homicide. | 

In other words, crimes which require courage and 
vigor of a certain sort and a distinct amount of more 
or less intelligent planning in advance have shown little 
or no diminution, because the absence or shortage of 
liquor has kept this class of criminals’ eye and hand 
steadier and brain clearer to carry out their nefarious 
designs. 

Unfortunately, the cutting off of the criminals’ sup- 
ply of liquor seems to have produced no similar vivify- 
ing and strengthening effect upon the intelligence of the 
police. The net result, because of this regrettable situa- 
tion, has been rather disconcerting to the community at 
large. 

Odd straws which have floated in during the course 
of this study and which are not without significance, are 
statements from several large employers of labor that 
there is a falling off of accidents in their mills and fac- 
tories and a diminution in the amount of valuabie raw 
material wasted or spoiled. Also there has been an in- 
crease in bank deposits of from $1,300,561,000 to $1,736,- 
322,000 from 1917 to 1920 in Milwaukee. 

There has been an astounding increase in the number 
of eating places in many communities, lunch counters, 
dairy lunches, food shops, soda-water fountains, and ice 
cream parlors. In one of the boroughs of New York city 
the number leaped from two thousand before the “dust- 
storm” to fourteen thousand one year later, showing 
that people are both amusing themselves and eating in- 
stead of drinking. No kind of poison that the human 
stomach can brew unaided and at short notice out of 
pure, wholesome food can rival alcohol in toxicity for 


282 SELECTED MAR MGLES 


a moment. It takes weeks and a mash tub or still to do 
that. 

Incidentally in this connection alcohol did great harm 
not only positive but “negative” to the thirsty laborer, 
or perspiring citizen in the dog-days. When you perspire 
freely you sweat out through your skin gallons of water 
per day instead of the ordinary pints, and you must pour 
into yourself equivalent amounts of water or suffer ser- 
ious “drying” and general damage to your system. 

A “glass of cool beer’ prevents this balancing pre- 
cisely because by its narcotic effect it quenches thirst 
long before a proper amount of water has been taken. 
If you drank enough beer to really physiologically quench 
your thirst and made good your perspiration loss, you'd 
be dead drunk. 

Furthermore, these ice cream sodas and fruit sodas 
and egg-shakes and milk-shakes contain substantial 
amounts of real food, and are often accompanied by 
cakes, cookies, doughnuts or sandwiches. It is positively 
comical though profoundly cheering to watch the huge 
amounts of these “pink tea’ refreshments consumed 
nowadays by great husky coal-heavers and teamsters and 
ditch diggers, because they find they can work better on 
them. I saw one strapping expressman down two huge 
ice-cream sodas one right after the other, and the drug- 
gist told me he often took five or six in the course of 
a day. 

Finally we come to the last, and in ultimate analysis, 
most fundamental problem of the alcohol habit. Can we 
face the trials of life without alcohol’s consolations and 
illusions? 

In the words of Wallace Irwin’s famous Japanese 
schoolboy “Answer is Yes!” But as to just how, the 
answer, it must be admitted, is still open. 

To what agencies and influences can we look to dull 
the wire edge of the Weltschmerz, to benumb us to the 
grim clutch of circumstances, to rose-color the gray, 


PROHIBITION 283 


monotonous drudgery of every-day toil, to give us a hope 
of better things to come, even if only a temporary gleam? 

It is urgent that some great public agency, church, 
Y.M.C.A., Y.M.H.A., the municipality, or the state should 
take over and intelligently study and administer the 
whole problem of recreation, of social pleasures, of music, 
the drama and the creative arts and crafts. Why not 
have a Commissioner of Happiness, as well as of Health, 
in the Department of Public Welfare? 

There is no need for any elaborate apparatus or 
equipment. The one keenest, most constant, never- 
failing, undying interest people have is just their interest 
in one another. The favorite study of mankind is man. 


BIG GAIN IN ORDER AND HEALTH IN 
BID Y GlEres? 


What has been the effect of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment upon the good order and the health of the com- 
munity? This question is more discussed today than 
any other, not only in this country but in half of the 
civilized world. England, Australia, New Zealand, the 
South American countries, Sweden and even Turkey are 
watching our experiment. Hence, it is profoundly im- 
portant that the true situation in this country shall be 
made known. 

For months a most active propaganda has been at 
work to point out the failures of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment and to ignore its successes. The law is attacked 
from many angles. We are told that under it crime has 
flourished much more than in the pre-prohibition days; 
that drunkenness is more common than before; that 
juvenile delinquency has increased; that alcoholic deaths 
have multiplied; that because the law is poorly enforced 
bootlegging has increased to such an extent that many 


1By William N. Gemmill, Judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago. 
New York Times. June 3, 1923. 


284 SELECTED (ARTICEES 


are now drinking who never drank before; that the dis- 
regard for prohibitory laws has led to a general con- 
tempt for all laws. 

Therefore it is urged that we ought to restore respect 
for law by bringing back the much abused saloon. It 
is also urged that men and women, boys and girls have 
become more lawless and immoral than ever before, due 
in large part to efforts put forth to enforce prohibitory 
laws. Influenced by this propaganda, honest inquirers 
are in doubt as to what our future attitude ought to be. 


OFFICIAL RECORDS INVOKED 


Recently I wrote to the mayors of sixty of the lead- 
ing cities of the country asking for accurate records of 
the total number of arrests in those cities for homicide, 
robbery, burglary and drunkenness; also for the total 
arrests for all offenses, and the total deaths from all 
causes for the years 1917 to 1922. Replies have now 
been received from fifty of these cities. The accom- 
panying table is an abstract of the information contained 
in these replies. 

In making the table I have ernie the figures giving 
the. total number of arrests for each year. I have like- 
wise omitted the figures given for drunkenness for the 
years 1918 and 1919 and have given the figures only for 
1917, 1920, 1921 and 1922.. The reason for this latter 
omission is that 1917 was a normal pre-prohibition year 
and 1920, 1921 and 1922 are the only whole years since 
the prohibition law became effective. Instead of giving 
the details as to crimes for each year, I have combined 
homicides, robberies and burglaries and given the figures 
only for the years 1917 and 1922. I have given the total 
deaths from all causes for the years 1917 and 1922. 

The total population of the cities enumerated in this 
table is about twenty-five million; or a little less than 
one-fourth of the total inhabitants of the country. Only 
twenty-four of the cities reported on the number of 


PROHIBITION 285 


deaths for each year. In comparing crime and health 
conditions in the different cities, allowance must always 
be made for the different methods of collecting statis- 
tics. In Chicago homicides are in a separate classifica- 
tion from murder and manslaughter, while in New York 
all are classed as homicides. Drunkenness in Chicago 
is erroneously classed as “disorderly conduct,” while in 
Boston and Philadelphia it is given its proper name. In 
Chicago, therefore, only an approximation can be made 
of the actual number of persons arrested for drunken- 
ness. 

Again, comparisons are made of the number of ar- 
rests in the different cities rather than of the actual num- 
ber of crimes committed. This is done because no ac- 
curate records are kept in the several cities of the actual 
number of offenses committed. A record is kept only 
when an arrest is made. Consequently, the record of 
arrests in a city is the best available evidence of the 
status of crime in that city. The purpose of this table 
is not to show the degree of law enforcement in each of 
the several cities, but to show the status of crime and 
disorder in each of these cities now, as compared with 
pre-prohibition days. 


WHAT rHE FicurES SHOW 


As to the more serious crimes of homicide, burglary 
and robbery, the figures show that in thirty-five of these 
cities there was a remarkable decrease between the years 
1917 and 1922. Fifteen cities only show an increase. 
Taking them all together there was a decrease of over 
10 per cent in the number of arrests for serious crimes 
in 1922 over the year 1917. This decrease began in 
1920 and has continued steadily ever since. 

In the matter of drunkenness, the record is far more 
instructive. In 1917 the total number of arrests in these 
cities for drunkenness was 302,074. In 1920 it was 
110,149; in 1921, 146,279, and 1922, 184,099. In other 


286 SELECTED)' ARTICLES 


words, there were 191,925 fewer arrests for drunken- 
ness in these cities in 1920 than 1917; 155,794 less in 
1921, and 117,975 less in 1922. The percentages of re- 
duction are 63 per cent less in 1920, 50 per cent less 
in 1921, 37 per cent less in 1922. If we multiply the 
population of these cities by four we approximate the 
total population of the country and, assuming that these 
cities represent fairly the total population of the country, 
we have seven hundred thousand less arrests for drunk- 
enness in 1920 and five hundred thousand less in 1922. 
It will be noticed that in a few cities the number of 
arrests for drunkenness in 1922 was greater than in 1917. 
Des Moines, Iowa, is an example. After receiving the 
letter from that city I wrote for an explanation and re- 
ceived in reply from the Chief of Police the following: 
One reason for the increased number of arrests for drunk- 
enness is that a much larger percentage of persons intoxicated 
are arrested now than ever before. I issued an order early in 
the year to the effect that all persons showing the slightest sign 
of intoxication should be brought to the station. In many 
instances now it almost takes an expert to determine whether 
the prisoner is intoxicated or not. Before such order only 


those were brought in who were helpless, and many of these 
were taken to their homes by friendly policemen. 


FEWER ARRESTS HERE 


In New York the total number of arrests for 1917 
was 187,613, while it was 303,451 in 1922 and 272,751 
in 1921. I wrote for an explanation and received in 
reply the following from the Police Commissioners: 
“The increase in the number of arrests is due entirely 
to the increase in traffic violations and not to an increase 
in major crimes.” 

The total number of arrests for traffic violations alone 
in New York for 1922 was 111,796. Add to this 11,810 
arrests for violating the prohibitory laws during the same 
year and you have 123,606 arrests in 1922 for offenses 
but little known and recognized in 1917. So, in Chicago, 
the total arrests in 1922 were 185,363, while in 1917 


PROHIBITION 287 


they were 129,270, and in 1921 147,861. Of these 
arrests 58,854 in 1922 were for automobile violations 
and 3,602 were for violating the prohibitory laws. Not- 
withstanding this increase in arrests in Chicago in 1922, 
the year has witnessed a decrease of over 25 per cent 
in all major crimes. 

The greater number of arrests in a city is not, there- 
fore, always an indication of a more lawless community. 
More than half of the arrests in Chicago and other large 
cities today are for the violation of new laws that did 
not exist twenty years ago, such as laws of sanitation, 
ten-hour laws for women, child-labor laws, white slave 
laws, anti-trust laws, laws to regulate the use of the 
automobile, pure food laws and many others. If you 
eliminate the arrests for violations of these laws, then 
the total number of arrests in 1922 in any large city 
will not be one-half what it was twenty or twenty-five 
years ago. 


PROHIBITION’S EFFECT ON THE YOUNG 


There are, of course, some who drink liquor now 
who never drank before. What a strange argument! 
Did it ever occur to these eager souls looking for an 
excuse that hundreds of thousands of young men and 
women reach the drinking age each year now as well 
as before the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment? 
Because some of them still fall victims, is that any 
reason why all of them should be exposed to the wiles 
of this most insidious business? 

Again it is urged that the boys and girls of today 
are more immoral, and this is due to a general breaking 
down of our laws through the enactment of prohibitory 
statutes. Since when did the saloon become an aid to 
moral reform? Or an inspiration to the young? As 
usual, the basis of the argument is wrong. An index 
of what is going on is found in our Juvenile Court in 
Chicago, the largest court of its kind in the world. Year 


288 SELURLCTEDGARIIGUES 


by year the cases of delinquency have decreased from 
twenty-seven hundred eighty-six in 1916 to nineteen hun- 
dred seventeen in 1922; and the dependency cases in 
that time from twenty-three hundred ten to thirteen hun- 
dred ninety-six. 

Dependent children come largely from drunken homes. 
We have in Cook County an infirmary where the home- 
less poor are kept. In 1920 the superintendent requested 
the courts to commit certain minor offenders to the in- 
firmary on the ground that prohibition had so reduced 
his force that he had an insufficient number of inmates 
to do the necessary work. This we did, and three hun- 
dred seventy-five persons were committed as prisoners 
in 1922. In spite of these recruits the total number of 
inmates in that year was seventy-one hundred eighty- 
nine, while in 1917 it was nine thousand twenty-three, or 
eighteen hundred thirty-four more. 

It is the duty of the Coroner of Cook County to hold 
an inquest upon the bodies of all persons found to have 
died under supicious circumstances. The record of in- 
quests fell off nearly one thousand between 1917 and 
1922, largely because men do not get drunk, lie out and 
die from cold and exposure now as frequently as before. 
What is true in Chicago is also true in New York. The 
number of suspicious deaths there decreased from 12,806 
in 1918 to 10,721 in 1920. 

Perhaps nowhere is the change that has come over 
the country been as manifest as in the lowering of the 
death rate everywhere. Notwithstanding the vast in- 
crease in the population, the number of deaths has de- 
creased in nearly every community. No one will claim 
that this is all due to the enactment of prohibition, but 
no one can examine the record without feeling that more 
sober living has had much to do with it. 

In the table on pages 290-1 the years 1917 and 1922 
are taken for comparison. In 1918, the last whole year 
before prohibition, the deaths were much greater every- 


PROHIBITION 289 


where because of the influenza. New York, notwith- 
standing an increase of five hundred thousand in its 
population between these two years, actually had about 
nine thousand fewer deaths in 1922 than in 1917. Chi- 
cago, about seven thousand fewer, although its population 
is four hundred thousand greater. Philadelphia forty-five 
hundred fewer. The death rate in the United States has de- 
creased in the last six years from about fifteen for every 
one thousand population to a little over eleven for every 
one thousand. And we are just informed by the United 
States government agents that the total consumption of 
intoxicating liquor during the last year is only about 
one-fifth what it was in 1917. 

There are many who have become discouraged. They 
feel that instead of the way of the transgressor being 
made hard it is day by day becoming easier and more 
attractive. They say that by the frequent breaking of 
the laws against the manufacture and sale of liquor a 
contempt has arisen for all laws, which seriously threatens 
the conimunity. 

Last year one-third of all arrests in the United States 
were due to violations of traffic regulations. Is there 
any one who would repeal these laws and allow the 
speeders to revel in a paradise of their own? 

The year 1920 was the banner year in the enforce- 
ment of the provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment. 
There was a decreased effort in 1921 and a still further 
letting down in 1922. This is due in large part to the 
encouragement received by the enemies of the measure 
through their organized propaganda. What is needed 
is a nation-wide movement to secure better enforcement. 
The President of the United States seems to be genuinely 
in sympathy with the law and no doubt desires a much 
stricter enforcement. But a great many of his appoint- 
ments of Federal prohibition agents have been political 
lame ducks not at all in sympathy with the law. Their 
main effort seems to have been to see how best they 
could hold their jobs and not enforce the law, 


SELECTED VARTIGCLES 


290 


o1b‘tg 
LQ6‘ZZL1 
veo‘6or 
LOL‘ZS 
GLE‘Z11 
Z1f‘ooV 
QgLe‘cbz 
zZL6‘SQ 
169‘1 bz 
Qr6‘19 
SZS‘vov 
IZ1‘QQ9‘Z 
oS9‘CZZ 
cvVv‘CIg 
1Z9‘ZSz 
61S°Q98 
£S8°999 
QSo'6ES 
gIZ‘oeS 
€S9‘Cog 
1ZS‘ZSV 
oor‘oZZ 
QgZ‘cz6'I 
Szg‘Zz0'S 
zcO1 
UO1}P] 
-ndog 


989‘I 6z1'z 
+399 61S°Z 
ooZ‘I¢ LZ0‘QE 
ZIQ‘OI 61Z‘o1 
1QV'e vo6‘e 
C19 Qrg‘oI 
SoV‘Z VS1‘Z 
909‘9 6SS°Z 
s0f9 §=—s 48909 
QzVv'it QcL‘TI 
Co1‘Sz 199‘6z 
06969 GZS‘9Z 
zzO1 L161 
sosney [TV wooly 
syyeoq [210 L 


Ze 
QzI 
vor 
gv 
£9 
1b~ 
II 
QeI 
QII 
98 


1zS 
voz‘e 
£08 
092 
£68 
vgg‘e 
zcOl 


GZ 
601 
QZ 
cz 
CII 
vz 
Ol 
voz 
LZZI 
IZ 
QIZ 
Sfo'Q 
ZOL‘I 
QTI 
rag 
€ZO0'I 
vLV 
vzgQ 
809 
VERT 
622 
926 
£06 
60S‘ 
L161 


Aie[sing pue Ais 
-qoy ‘soplormiofy 
IOF SSIIIV 


SHILLID OS NI NOLLIGIHOUd AO S.LOdeddH AHL 


LVI 
o00‘¢ 
Sei ! 
62S 
gsV'1 
590 


Ofc v= 


vos 
ElQ’e 
Oe 
£96‘g 
691‘Zz 
CS6'V 
vSS‘o1 
QIz‘e 
ofr'y 
010'6 
192‘Z 
SS9‘g 
QOL 
SOEL 
err‘Ze 
66z‘9¢ 
coV'iTt 
ecOl 


vzI 
evi1‘z 
Qri‘l 
Ooze 
099 
ZEs 
6Z£2°C 
gS 
G29‘ 
ZI¢ 
eres 
Srz‘6I 
199°% 
IZ¢‘OI 
ZQL‘I 
o£6‘c 
VIZ‘ 
Lge 
gots 
£66 
Qr0‘e 
VI9Q‘oe 
QLS*Zz 
691°8 
1z61 


chi 
Izcc 
Qco'r 
Loz 
LLV 
SSt 
£99‘z 
zSS 
ggs‘I 
1fz 
ZOO 
1zg‘GSI 
g60‘S 
Lia 
€SO'r 
QoZL‘T 
gga‘s 
VIQ‘I 
TLeZ 
199‘I 
GoS‘C 
0g6‘61 
o1V‘oz 
bog‘Z 
Ozol 


OLY 1 
SOLS. 
EIEN Ee 
Lele 
OLE Cees 
Ive Case 
£90‘S ee 
QbV't ee 
SLL cease 
20c 
cSiome 
ggz‘ST°° 
CaS Les 
Qt6‘Qz°° 
OCS C= 
LQ at 
GZ9‘QI°° 
SOS Ts 
Goz‘vi°° 
VOSiCs 
gr9‘6 ee 
QVe‘CL:: 
¢L6‘cV°° 
Teo 
L161 


——ssouuodyuniq, 10} s}so1ny—— 


. 


eoreeev es BIIO3g 


"o88* WOACTT MON 


°°* Ayty Aasiol 
" AWD onuely 
eeeeeee Aueq Vy 
"ees TyeuUTOUIZ. 
"** QOUdpIAOIg 
= SINQSIIe ES 


eres meg ig 
" “q2N ‘upooury 
* sueazIOQ MON 
eoveece oseolyy 
vee QIOWTyeg 
cere ysingsiig 
eos ERS EROEE 
st 8*) puRpaAgy 
** Soasuy SOT 
OdsTIUeIT ULS 
sees oreyng 
+++ smoq ‘3S 
** OLSUTYSE MA 
reese YoIsog 


“8° erydjaperlyg 
os #310 > MON: 


291 


PROHIBITION 


gog‘Se1 
Lez‘vvi 
15969 
Serer 
veer 
voS ‘vol 
QS‘S6 
vec‘VI 
BEE‘ggz 
vSz'IV 
G6S ‘Var 
zQe ‘Vor 
zvg‘SII 
pSg‘IZ 
o1f‘gz 
ZL6‘SZ 
Zie‘Gve 
vzg‘'zS 
yor‘Szz 
vizVI 
Gz1‘60V 
6rS‘z6 
Let‘zg 
399°S06 
€QZ‘Sv 
VVO'Igi 
zzO1 
uoTye] 
-ndog 


veeVv 
ZQ6 


90°11 
gto‘? 
zcO1 


6£z 


CVS‘ 


699°C 
ecV’s 
i AmrA 


eoecee 


QSI‘I 
000‘T 
QIL‘z 
ziVv‘v 
Qzz‘I 


IQL‘II 


gco‘z 
ZIO1 


sosneo [[e@ WO1Y 


sy}eeq [210 L 


Qz 
vS 


zzOI 


89 
L161 


Aiepsing pue Aroq 


-qoy ‘soprormoTzy 
IO} S}solIVyy 


ces‘e 6r6'T 


z00 $68 
v5g 948 
Zl7 L6z 
ZOe LLz 
bere L9z% 
tGa-1 Loo‘r 
SVI QzI 
oSZ‘I O6cL‘I 
VeZ LVL 
esrs QSoc 
gog*t 9gg*t 
GzQ‘I QS1‘I 
Ostet €ZQ 
Ive €ez 
QeS‘T ZLO'l 
CI LI 
ors Vgc 
ELg‘e zol‘e 
cv 6z 
gcg coe 
Ser 1ZV 
9916 oe‘ol 
IZV‘I £39°1 
gto'c S9S‘z 
ezOl IZ61 


——ssouusyuniIq 10} sjsolty—— 


QLI 
cv 
G69‘SI 
IQI‘I 
grgic 
ozOI 


ZIO1 


e 


teeeees somrop Sage 
“esse, ‘Ploydurids. 
nesses TTT “prop3poy 
Feteseeeeeeees Quay 

sees esos QOTTOTE AA. 


reeeeees ung 
"°° ay[TAuosyoe f 
veeeeees eUgioRT 


Feeeeeess OpaToy. 


‘D'S ‘eiquinjoD 
sees) SONNVAMIIPL 
eewroes eyeucO 
“+++ eWOyepyO 
"YoY HT 
eeereeeees OS1e J 
’ ‘OW ‘puepiog 
rreeeees gtnyea¢ 
veeeeees Barua 
reeeeees GOITYy 
=< SiOdeuu vy. 
“* stodeauulyy 
“°° QUARAA 31057 
or ee eon Sulsue’y 


aca opto WoINEq 


‘sseyy ‘ppysnid 


rad anires puowyory 


292 SECLECTEDGATOMGLES 


It is evident the President cannot have personal 
knowledge of many of these men, and the law-abiding 
community must hold responsible for such marked fail- 
ures as we have had senators and other local politicians. 
who recommend them to the Chief Executive. 

The Eighteenth Amendment will no more be repealed 
than the Ten Commandments. When we all recognize 
this fact, then this amendment will stand before the 
country as an accomplished thing. 


FOUR. YEARSVOPSPROHTBITDION SENG ime 
[Ct RS RI Ln AY WE Bestar 


Prohibition has justified itself in less than four years 
of its life. The law has been only partially enforced in 
our large cities. We have demonstrated, however, two 
things; First, that prohibition enforced is a_ success, 
Second: that prohibition partially enforced is better than 
the licensed or legalized liquor traffic. 


PROHIBITION AND DRUNKENNESS 


Arrests for drunkenness throughout the United States 
have been cut in half since prohibition. If the new law 
had done nothing more than to check the increase in the 
ratio of drunkenness arrests through the country it would 
have been of almost incalculable benefit to the nation. 
It has cut the totals of these arrests from 25 to 75 per 
cent in the representative cities, or an average of about 
50 per cent. This is more significant since in the wet 
years only those drunken persons who were public nui- 
sances were arrested. Today, practically every person seen 
by the police is arrested. The current figures on drunk- 
enness arrests, therefore, represent the amount of public 
drunkenness, whereas, former figures showed only a 


1By Wayne B. Wheeler, General Counsel, Anti-Saloon League of 
America. Issued February 14, 1924. : 


PROHIBITION 293 


small part of the number of drunken persons seen on 
thiemstreets: 

Judge William M. Gemmill, of the Chicago Munici- 
pal Court, a national authority on crime and arrests, 
said on June 3rd, 1923, that from data he has gathered 
he estimates that the number of arrests for drunken- 
ness in 1922 was five hundred thousand fewer than the 
last wet year, 1917, during which time the population 
of the country increased 6.9 per cent. Prohibition has 
reduced the number of drinkers from approximately 
twenty million to two and a half million and the con- 
sumption of beverage liquors 70 per cent, according to 
the survey made by the opponents of prohibition them- 
selves. 

PROHIBITION AND CRIME 


A steady decrease in our criminal rate since the com- 
ing of prohibition is shown by the police statistics from 
nearly all our cities. In spite of the many thousands of 
automobile law violations occurring daily, the total num- 
ber of arrests on all charges gives a lower ratio per 
unit of the population since prohibition than during the 
wet period which preceded it. The decrease in major 
crimes in the larger cities from the number in 1917 is 
large. 

Propagandists for the liquor forces quote figures 
showing the total number of arrests has increased in 
many cities. They conceal the fact that the ratio of 
arrests per hundred thousand of population has decreased 
in all except a few centers and that practically all this 
increase, where it does exist, is due to the number of 
violations of rules affecting automobiles, white slave 
laws, anti-trust laws, pure food laws and a host of 
others where crime of moral turpitude is rarely involved. 
In New York city, the arrests in 1922 for violation of 
automobile rules were 303,451, whereas, in 1917 they 
were 187,613. If arrests of this character were eliminated 
from the total the arrests in 1922 in most of our large 


204 SELECTED ARTICLES 


cities would be more than 50 per cent below the average 
in wet years in spite of the increase in population. 


PRISON POPULATION 


With a long list of new offenses punishable with 
imprisonment, America’s prison population has decreased 
since the coming of prohibition. In many states, county 
jails are entirely empty. Other jails have been closed 
and several counties cooperate in maintaining one insti- 
tution where separate jails were needed in the days of 
the saloon. The press frequently carries news-items tell- 
ing of the embarrassment met in some jails or prisons 
where the number of inmates is too small to do the 
ordinary tasks of the institution. 

The Census Bureau recently published a survey of 
prisons in the country, including also the jails, police 
station lock-ups and the chain gangs where prisoners 
work out their sentences on the public roads or in quaries 
and camps. This survey contained reports from eight 
hundred sixteen more institutions in 1922 than a similar 
survey reached in 1917 but in spite of the fact that the 
earlier survey was so defective, the increase in all in- 
stitutions shown was only 5.4. The general ratio of 
prisoners reported in 1922 was 137.4 while eight hun- 
dred sixteen fewer institutions furnishing figures in 1917 
gave a ratio of one hundred forty-three per one hundred 
thousand population. 

The average number of prisoners in the penal insti- 
tutions of the country was 27.6 in 1917 and only 25.7 
in 1922. The decrease in county institutions was 16.2 
in 1917 to 14.7 in 1922; in city institutions from 10.1 
to 8. 

That prohibition has been responsible for the decrease 
in prison population may be inferred from the fact that 
the states showing decreases, six had adopted state pro- 
hibition after 1917 and ten others were among the first 
fifteen states to adopt the prohibition amendment. 


—————e 


PROHIBITION 295 


All the city prisons reporting in 1917 reported also in 
1922. The later report shows twenty-nine hundred 
fifty-three fewer prisoners in these institutions in the 
latter year than in the same institutions at the previous 
census, a decrease of 11.2 prisoners per one hundred 
thousand population in the these cities. In 1922, thirteen 
hundred ninety of the twenty-nine hundred thirty-nine 
city prisons in the country had no prisoners at all. The 
total number of penal institutions of all classes without 
inmates in 1922 was nineteen hundred sixty. 

There is one statement in the report of the law en- 
forcement committee of the American Bar Association 
which is quoted more at home and abroad than any 
other in the report. It says: “The general population 
of the country in the year 1910 until the year 1922 has 
increased 14.9 per cent. The criminal population has 
increased 16.6 per cent.” This is an unfortunate state- 
ment as it is not correct: 

The population increased from 1910 to 1920, 14.9 per 
cent. The estimated increase of population, as deter- 
mined by the Census Bureau, from 1910 to 1922 is 18.7 
instead of 14.9, as stated by the committee. This shows 
that crime has not increased as fast as population. 

In New York state, the inmates of the penal insti- 
tutions decreased 7.8 per cent during the fiscal year end- 
ing June 30, 1923, according to the report of the State 
Commissioner of Prisons. The male prison population 
decreased 8.7 per cent. In state prisons, the decrease 
was 6.4 per cent; in the State Reformatory at Elmira, 
25.6 per cent and in the institutions administered by the 
New York City Department of Corrections, 14 per cent. 
The number of commitments fell from fourteen hundred 
fifty in 1922 to eight hundred ninety-one in 1923. Half 
of 1923’s commitments came from Manhattan. Aliens 
committed during the year numbered one hundred ninety- 
six or 22 per cent. 

In Rhode Island, the state workhouse, which has re- 
ceived 31,385 prisoners in the fifty-two years of its 


296 SELECTEDSARGIGCEES 


existence, closed its doors, committals having decreased 
72.5 per cent since prohibition. The average population 
of the institution was 211.4 in the last ten wet years. 
It was 58.2 in the average dry year. 


DRINK AND CHARITY 


Drink cases coming to charity organizations have 
been reduced 74 per cent through prohibition, comparing 
1922 with 1917. The population of the almshouses tells 
the same story throughout the United States. In Chicago, 
the Cook County Infirmary found prohibition so reduced 
the number of homeless poor cared for at the institution 
that the superintendent requested the courts to commit 
minor offenders to the almshouse because there were not 
enough inmates to do the simple tasks of the place. The 
courts sentenced three hundred seventy-five prisoners 
to the Infirmary in 1922 to relieve this situation. In 
spite of this, the population of this poorhouse was eigh- 
teen hundred thirty-four less in 1922 than in 1917. 

The number of neglected and dependent children has 
correspondingly decreased since prohibition. The largest 
court of its kind in the United States is the Juvenile 
Court in Chicago. This court cared for twenty-seven hun- 
dred eighty-six cases of juvenile delinquency in 1916 
and only nineteen hundred seventeen in 1922. The 
dependency cases before the court were twenty-three 
hundred ten in 1916 and thirteen hundred ninety- 
six in 1922. With the disappearance of the destitute vic- 
tims of the saloons the slums where they herded in mis- 
ery are vanishing. Throughout our cities, saloons had 
held the corner sites in the poorer neighborhood. As 
these bars closed their doors, better business moved in, 
a new type of population developed, houses were repaired 
and rebuilt, and both the values of the realty and the 
character of the neighborhood advanced. The poor may 
be always with us, but poverty is today comparative and 
no longer is it drink-sodden as in the saloon era. 





PROHIBITION 297 


How PROHIBITION AFFECTS THE HOME 


The home has profited more than any other institu- 
tion in American society by the passing of the saloon. 
Since the adoption of prohibition we have more than 
trebled our home building. The largest amount spent 
for residential buildings in five years preceding national 
prohibition was a monthly average of $40,275,000. In 
March and April of this year, the costs of new homes 
for which contracts were let were $164,267,000 and 
163,476,000 respectively, according to the estimates 
published by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Com- 
merce from trade reports. The stimulation of home life 
and the elimination of the drain upon the family purse 
through the advent of prohibition have aided in causing 
the greatest building boom in our history. The number 
of new homes whose construction is being begun monthly 
is now eighty-six hundred forty-seven as compared to 
thirty-nine hundred ninety-nine in 1919. 

The influence of the home life touches each phase of 
our social welfare. Not only trade, but our amusements, 
such as the moving pictures which may be enjoyed by 
families, have replaced the drinking in the saloon. School 
life reflects home influence in both ends of the scale. The 
attendance at kindergartens, where the children begin 
their careers, shows changed conditions in the family, 
increased ambition and greater means to clothe the 
youngsters fittingly. At the other end of ‘school life, 
where formerly the child was removed from school as 
early—or earlier—as the law permitted to earn money 
because the father could not support his family and two 
or three bartenders as well, we find prohibition is work- 
ing great changes. Few of our schools can care for the 
numbers now thronging the higher grades. The other 
side of the shield has been burnished, as well. The pass- 
ing of the saloon has seen an enormous decrease in the 
number of cases of non-support, of abandonment of 
families, and of neglect of children. 


2098 SELECTED ARTICLES 


SAVINGS BANKS 


The addition of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 each 
month to our savings banks accounts, strikingly evi- 
denced the constructive instead of destructive use of our 
money since prohibition. It closed the sewer through 
which we had been pouring our national wealth, health 
and happiness. We added $634,900,000 to our savings 
accounts in the twelve months ending in August of this 
year in eleven out of twelve of our Federal Reserve dis- 
tricts. These figures only include those banks reporting 
their savings accounts through the Federal Reserve 
Board. They are partial only but are representative and 
constitute one of the most important business indicators. 
Only fifty such banks are reported in the New York 
Reserve district. Conditions obtaining in the reporting 
banks are similar to those in other institutions, so that 
the totals given by the reporting banks may need to be 
multiplied to arrive at the enormous total of over 
$1,000,000,000 added this year to savings deposits 
throughout the entire country. Besides the deposits in 
the banking institutions, the United States Postal Sav- 
ings contained $132,863,000 in November. The Ameri- 
can Bankers Association estimated our savings deposits 
on June 30, 1923, as $18,373,062,000. Our total savings 
deposits are reported as only $3,000,000,000 less than the 
national debt at the close of 1923. 


LIFE INSURANCE REFLECTS PROSPERITY 


Over $600,000,000 worth of new life insurance busi- 
ness is being written each month in the United States by 
forty companies. If the business done by other com- 
panies not included in the monthly tabulations of the 
Association of Life Insurance Presidents, were added 
to this figure, the probable grand total would be nearly 
$900,000,000 new business. The forty companies reported 
each month by this association do about 75 per cent of 
the life insurance business of the country. The present 


PROHIBITION 209 


volume of life insurance business is more than double 
that done monthly in the last wet year, 1917. Especially 
noteworthy have been the increases in the amount of in- 
dustrial insurance now being written. This is the type 
usually carried by the wage-earner. The volume of new 
business done by the industrial life insurance companies 
monthly is now nearly three times the amount written 
in the last wet year, 1917. President Duffield of the 
Prudential Life Insurance Company estimated that one 
hundred twenty-three companies wrote over $11,700,- 
000,000 in new policies in 1923. 

The assets of the life insurance, both ordinary and 
industrial, have advanced proportionately. In 1917, be- 
fore prohibition, the total assets of the ordinary life in- 
surance companies of America, were $5,456,170,982; in 
1921 they were $7,017,829,612. Industrial insurance 
companies have assests of $5,193,830,295 in 1917, and 
$7,833,272,301 in 1921. The enormous increase in new 
business during the last eighteen months, not yet re- 
ported in the Insurance Year Book from which these 
figures are taken, will materially add to these assets. 


DrEaTH Rates REFLECTED BY INSURANCE REPORTS.. 


The insurance companies mirrored the decrease in 
national death rates which came with prohibition. The 
ratio of actual to the expected mortality of policy holders 
listed by the Insurance Year Book gives these ratios as 
follows: 1919, ordinary insurance 64.88; industrial in- 
surance 77.30; 1920, ordinary, 63.16, industrial 68.19, 
1921, ordinary, 51.52; industrial 57.46. The actual mor- 
tality costs in the companies listed was $118,963,224 less 
than expected in 1919; $134,240,040 less in 1920, and 
$210,584,420 less in 1921, and $214,971,817 in 1922 a 
total “savings” in mortality of $678,769,501. These 
mortality savings are one of the three sources from which 
dividends accrue to life insurance policy holders. The 
decrease under prohibition, due to the lowered death 
rate, has been record-making. 


300 SELECTED ARTICLES 


In the five years preceding prohibition the death rate 
based on the mean insurance held in fifty companies, ac- 
cording to the Insurance Year Book, never was less than 
1.06. That was in 1917, a year of restriction upon the 
liquor traffic. In 1915 and 1916, it was 1.16. It has been 
much higher. 1919 saw this percentage drop to 1.05 with 
limitations upon the manufacture and sale of liquor and 
the coming of war-time prohibition. In 1920, the rate 
fell to .92, in 1921 it was .79, while 1922 shows a rate 
OL Slt 

We do not have to die to win when we insure our lives 
today. During the first three years of prohibition, a num- 
ber of our greatest insurance companies paid more cash 
in dividends to policy holders than they paid in death 
losses. This marks a new era in life insurance history. 
A single company in 1923 paid over $46,000,000 in divi- 
dends to policy holders or $11,000,000 more than it paid 
in death claims. 


CHAIN STorES GET BEER NICKLES 


Nickels are no longer spent in licensed saloons for 
mugs of beer. Instead they travel in increasing num- 
bers to the chain stores of the country. The total sales 
in five of the ten cent chain stores increased from a 
monthly average of $12,806,000 in 1917, to $23,356,000 
per month in 1922. In the first ten months of 1923 these 
chain stores showed increases ranging from 14 to 27 
per cent over 1922 totals. 

Department store sales showed the largest percent- 
ages of increases in those centers which had formerly 
been wet. Boston showed an increase of 18 per cent 
for 1922 over 1919; New York 17 per cent, Philadelphia 
1 per cent and San Francisco 22 per cent. 


SAVINGS IN LIVES 


The reduction of the national death rate, which came 
with prohibition, has been equivalent to the saving of 


—— oa 


PROHIBITION 301 


873,975 lives in the first four years. In the nine years 
preceding the ban upon the saloons, the mortality rate 
only once fell as low as 13.3 varying from 13.5 to 14.1 
per hundred thousand population. In 1919, war-time 
prohibition went into force, preceded by over a year of 
restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. 
In that year the rate fell to 12.8. The first completely 
dry year, 1920, had a rate of 13 per hundred thousand. 
All records were broken in 1921 when the rate fell to 
the extremely low figure of 11.6 per hundred thousand. 
In 1922 it was 11.8. The figures for 1923, of course, 
have not yet been compiled by the Census Bureau but 
estimates based on reports from sixty-five cities report- 
ing each week during 1922 and 1923, indicate that the 
registration area death rate will probably be about 12.2 
for 1923. 

The eight hundred and seventy-three thousand lives 
saved by the lowered rate of the first three years of 
prohibition, wouid have a valuation of $1,750,000,000 if 
a human life is worth $2,000, a lower figure than is re- 
coverable at law in many states. 

The published figures of the Metropolitan Life In- 
surance Company, giving the death rate among over 
fourteen million of its policy holders, shows that for the 
second half of 1922 the health record was the best ever 
shown in the company’s history, while the rate for the 
third quarter is the minimum for any three-month period 
among these industrial insurance policy holders, showing 
a rate of 7.6 per thousand insured. 


GENERAL PROSPERITY 


The general prosperity of the United States shows 
some of the channels into which we are diverting today 
the billions of dollars that formerly flowed over the bar 
of the saloon. We are producing and buying over two 
hundred and fifty thousand passenger automobiles a 
month. The automobile industries have compiled sta- 


302 SELECTED ARTICLES 

tistics showing that 15,281,295 motor vehicles are in use 
in the nation. That prohibition was a factor in making 
possible this production and consumption is set forth by 
E. M. Miller, statistician of the National Bank of Com- 
merce, New York city, in the October issue of Commerce 
Monthly where he says: 

Of sufficient importance to deserve more attention than it 
has heretofore received is the question as to the part prohibition 
has played in releasing purchasing power for automobiles and 
their upkeep. Whether the many estimates of what the annual 
drink bill was prior to prohibition were or were not accurate, 
the figures of the United States Census of Manufactures of 
1914, the last before national prohibition legislation becamie 
effective, are not open to argument, and they show that the 
factory value of alcoholic, malt and vinous liquors produced 
in the United States in that year was $666,000,000. The drink 
bill for the last wet year is generally estimated at $2,500,000,000. 
The actual cost to the consumer was, of course, greatly in excess 
of this. The mere application of the money formerly spent on 
drink to the purchase and upkeep of automobiles would ac- 
count for a large share of the annual national expenditure on 
them. 


In general, the production of articles of luxury have 
either maintained or increased their total in production 
during 1923. The nation’s general prosperity is afforded 
the market at home for these products. During the past 
year the American who produced the luxuries and other 
‘material formerly exported consumed most of them him- 
self. We are driving our own cars; wearing our own 
silks, owning our own homes; keeping our mills and 
factories busy at top speed to supply products for our 
use. In fact, we are doing everything, except buying 
and drinking our own drinks. It is because we have cut 
off the drink bill, which included not alone the price of 
intoxicants but the care of the criminal, diseased, insane, 
destitute and despoiled by-products of the saloon that we 
can have the other things instead. 

The United States of America will hold fast, 
strengthen her lines, and lend a helping hand to all 
nations to secure for themselves these same blessings, 
which our country now enjoys. 


a EEE 


ee 


a - 


PROHIBITION 303 


EXPERIENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS, GEORGIA 
AND HAWAII* 


Let us examine the results in certain communities 
that were foolish enough to make the test of permitting 
the sale of beer on the theory that it would tend to pro- 
mote temperance and sobriety. The test has been made 
in the states of Georgia and Massachusetts and, more 
recently, in the territory of Hawaii. 

In Massachusetts, the so-called prohibition law of 
1869 (effective in 18/0) permitted the sale of malt 
liquors containing about 3 per cent of alcohol. After 
a short test, the law was repealed. The results of the 
“prohibition” law which permitted the manufacture and 
sale of beer were stated as follows by Judge Rockwell 
of the Berkshire District Court: 

Under the laws of 1870, the sale of malt liquor was au- 
thorized for several months in the town by vote of the inhabi- 
tants. Efforts to enforce prohibitory law, or what there was 
left of it, during that period were almost nugatory. In no way, 
as it seems to me, can a greater blow be given to the prohibi- 


tory law, or its purpose be more surely defeated, than by legaliz- 
ing the sale of malt liquors. 


The governor of the state in his inaugural address 
said: 

If we are to accept the evidence of those who have had 
the most painful experience of the miseries produced by these 


places (beer-shops), they are among the greatest obstacles to 
the social and moral progress of the community. 


Georgia experimented with a so-called “near” beer 
law which permitted the manufacture and sale of near 
or 2 per cent beer. This law was passed in 1908. The 
results are stated as follows: 


This gave opportunity for the wholesale and retail sale 
of whisky, and the prohibitory law was almost a dead letter. 
The sale of near beer was a pretext; real beer was sold, and 
the beer joints smuggled whisky to any purchasers. 


1 By George S. Hobart. Annals of the American Academy. 109: 97-8. 
September, 1923. 


304 SELECTED ARTIGLES 


After a test of seven years, a special session of the 
legislature enacted a drastic prohibition law in 1915 which 
repealed the near beer law and, among other things, pro- 
hibited the sale of all malted, fermented and brewed 
liquors of any kind or description, including near beer. 
This law is still in effect. 

Governor Farrington, of the Territory of Hawaii, in 
a message to the American Legion convention a short 
time ago said: 


Hawaii has had an experience with this same light wine and 
beer movement. ... We were told that light wineand beer were 
non-injurious beverages and if the people were allowed to get 
this light liquor they would avoid the poisonous stuff sold in 
the country and also the illicit sale of hard liquor would be 
reduced. 

The desired legislation was passed. ... These dispensaries 
of so-called non-injurious liquors did not fulfill one single 
promise of those who were responsible for the trial... . 

Drunkenness increased and the light wine and beer panacea, 
instead of being the solution of the problem and the promoter 
of real temperance, very rapidly became a universally recognized 
nuisance. It carried with it all the difficulties of high license 
and enjoyed the unsavory reputation of being the center of vice 
and often times community disorder. 

Having observed the experience of Hawaii in this matter, 
it seems to me this should prove a splendid example and pre- 
vent . . . falling into line with the so-called panacea which 
has ... proved that as a cure it is worse than the disease. 


BERECT OR “PROHIBITIONZON PAMIION 
WELFARE* 


Our figures, showing an 85 per cent reduction be- 
tween 1917 (wet) and 1921 (dry), in cases in which 
drink figured, coming to sixteen organized charity as- 
sociations for relief, show that the country was full of 
men who drank because liquor was accessible, sociable 
and cheap. Now that it is harder to get, less sociable 
and much dearer, thousands, as they express it, are 


1 By the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work, 
New atic and the Boston Family Welfare Society. 


PROHIBITION 305 


giving it the “go-by.’” This means much more money 
going into homes,—in short, great economic good. If 
such results come from partial enforcement what may 
we not expect from increased enforcement? 


Hee 
_ co me 
Ces 8s 
ve Teh Re S) oO 
SMa Gano | By 
ST pas) (eae 5 |) tetra ta 
Sie ous 
Provident IQI7 3563 412 11.6 
LNSSOCIALION Uae iiasiia mie. 1921 3283 23 0.7 04 
Chicago United IQI7 7507 625 8.3 
(PHA EELLOS hates kiaice 7s! a? ots 1921 5547 61 TE 86.7 
Boston Family 1917 3589 984 Py: 
Welfare Society ...... 1921 3057 a3 2.4 ORS 
Pawtucket, R. I. 
Associated IQI7 508 17 Bia 
Gira nitiesiicsce swiss 10a | 975 O 0.0 100 
Painville, N. J. 
Charity IQI7 416 72 173 
Oise mizations mers wo a. 1921 525 16 3.0 83.3 
Atlantic City 
Welfare IQI7 961 67 Q.1 
PSUIECAU eerie eich da'ste 1921 974 12 LDP 82.1 
Newport, R. I. IQI7 484 48 9.9 
Deed Otay Cie a ee op ae 1921 A723 12 Be 68.8 
Portland, Me. 
Associated IQI7 yl) 43 15.5 
GhATITICSH he oe 1921 387 3 0.8 05.3 
Newburgh, N. Y. 
Associated IQI7 343 220 64.1 
CEhavities, Biers clei: 1921 432 Ps 0.5 99.1 


Cleveland, O. 
Associated IQI7 4571 782 17 
atiTieS eek alae ory mes 1921 9359 245 2.6 84.8 


306 SELECTED ARTICLES 


bv elele 
a ay ~ ~ 
ae Chie Oana 
iy Cert = i co) co) o 
iss) Gy € wn rw Hw O 
bet pe oe pae 
La Crosse, Wis. 
Social Service IQI7 180 46 25.6 
SOCIO C VM MUMMERS eat, 5 ous IQ2I 203 2.0 01.3 
Portland, Ore. 
Public Welfare IQI7 1280 5 0.4 
Bunea iq weenie. ssc '° st ue 1Q2I 2577 15 0.6 40. (inc.) 
IN Ya aga Ly: 
Organization 1917 4204 972 23 
SOCIELVANine ty. si itlae aes 1921 2340 196 8.4 64.1 
Hartford, Conn. 
Charity IQI7 518 143 27.6 
Organization eres: 1921 535 9 ey) 03.7 
Washington, D. C. 
Associated 1917 2410 434 18.0 
Chantties iaaterar aw ainan 1921 1497 67 4.5 yA 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Social Welfare IQI7 689 140 20.3 
Deaciey ua vara wide LN 1921 892 34 3.8 81.4 y 
Brovidence, Ra. 
Society for Organiz- 1917 1636 106 6.5 
Ing APhaArinviee ni wueeee 192] 1450 4 0.3 95 


THE WET DRIVE AND THE AMERICAN 
PEDERAITION SF OPVEABORS 


The drive to induce the American Federation of 
Labor to join the chorus for the repeal of the Eighteenth 
Amendment will provide one of the real thrillers in the 
political field from now until the next presidential elec- 
tion. 

President Gompers is persistent in his opposition to 
prohibition. But though for the past thirty-six years 


1 By Richard T. Jones. New Republic, 35: 41-2. June 6, 1923. 


PROHIBITION 307 


(with the single exception of the year 1894) the delegates 
to the federation’s conventions have regularly lined up 
for Mr. Gompers as president, in vital political and eco- 
nomic issues they have frequently declined to follow his 
leadership. 

The grizzled veteran of the American organized 
labor movement has, for instance, always opposed gov- 
ernment ownership of railroads. But the 1920 conven- 
tion, in spite of his strong speech in opposition, voted 
overwhelmingly for government ownership. Though he 
has persistently fought the formation by labor of a 
political party, the Chicago Federation voted ten to one 
in favor of an independent labor party and the Penn- 
sylvania Federation of Labor later voted three hundred 
to one in favor of independent political action. Because 
of the success of the Farmer-Labor Party in the middle 
west last fall, political action will be an outsanding issue 
in the convention to be held in Portland, Oregon, in 
October of this year. Doubtless Mr. Gompers will be re- 
elected, but additional evidence is available to indicate 
that the convention delegates and the labor ranks in 
general are getting out of hand and refusing to adhere 
to the political policies which are advocated by the old- 
line leaders. 

Meanwhile, though the 1923 convention is some 
months away, rumblings of dissatisfaction with Mr. 
Gompers’s repeated attacks on prohibition are heard on 
the hustings, and any attempt by the wet element to 
urge the federation to go on record against the Eigh- 
teenth Amendment is certain to be stoutly opposed. 

Recently the Central Labor Council of Everett, Wash- 
ington, declared that President Gompers does not ex- 
press the sentiment of organized labor on the question. 
Labor leaders in many industrial centers are outspoken 
in their opinions that prohibition has helped the labor 
movement and that the ousting of the saloons has been 
an important factor in allowing it to develop along 
legitimate lines. 


308 SELECTEDWAR TICLES 


Many national labor officials, notably the heads of 
the railroad brotherhoods, are also plainly out of sym- 
pathy with President Gompers’s stand on prohibition. 
While not all the railroad organizations are affiliated 
with the American Federation of Labor, recent public 
expressions of such leaders as Warren S. Stone, Grand 
Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 
D. B. Robertson, Chief of the Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Firemen, and others, are fairly representative of 
the opinions of many who have no desire to interfere 
with present prohibition legislation. 

Mr. Stone says: 


The international convention of the Brotherhood of Locomo- 
tive Engineers, assembled in Cleveland in 1918, declared by 
unanimous vote in favor of world-wide prohibition. The vote 
was cast by 828 delegates representing 90,000 Locomotive Engi- 
neers in the United States and Canada. In addition to this... 
Section 52 of the constitution and by-laws of the B. of L. E, 
declares that “The use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage by 
Sr of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is pro- 

ibited.” 

I do not know by what authority Mr. Gompers speaks for the 
American Federation of Labor, but there is no doubt as to the 
authority I have for making my declaration on the subject of 
prohibition. 


Mr. Robertson states: 


I would be bitterly opposed to any modification or repeal of 
the Volstead Act. Section 4, Article 17, of the constitution of 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen states: 
“A member who uses intoxicating liquors to excess or who shall 


be found guilty of drunkenness shall, upon conviction, be penal- 
ized. 


W. G. Lee, President of the Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Trainmen, is no less emphatic in his views: 

I can very emphatically say that so long as this Act is on 
the statute books of the country the Brotherhood of Railroad 
Trainmen is in favor of its enforcement, as it is in favor of the 
enforcement of all the laws of the country. 

L. E. Sheppard, President of the Order of Railroad 
Conductors, says: 


_ The Order of Railroad Conductors has long had an article 
in its constitution which provides that any person engaging in 


ee ee ie 


PROHIBITION 309 


the liquor traffic shall be expelled from the order. I know Mr. 
Gompers very well and have talked with him and know his views 
on this subject, and I do not agree with him that organized 
ect is in favor of any modification or repeal of the Volstead 

These expressions enable one to form an idea of 
some of the prohibition sentiment in labor union circles. 
In the old days, “Don’t vote your fellow workingman 
out of a job,” and “Prohibition robs the worker of his 
personal liberty,’ made an effective appeal. But since 
the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment the average 
trade unionist is no longer impressed. 

The drive to line up organized labor in an anti- 
prohibition crusade will meet with little success if the 
“unemployment” argument is used again, for there is 
very little unemployment in America—a condition which 
is likely to continue for some time. Beside many trade 
unionists are becoming convinced that the transfer of 
capital from the manufacture of liquor to other lines 
has materially helped the unemployment situation. Ac- 
cording to the Federal Census Reports a capital invest- 
ment of over $4,000 was required to employ one wage- 
earner in the manufacture of liquor, compared with less 
than $2,000 in other industries. “Tear down a saloon 
and in its place is built a factory,’ said John Mitchell, 
former president of the United Mine Workers of Amer 
ica. And wet labor leaders have never been able suc- 
cessfully to combat the claims of the dry labor men that 
more men are employed in other lines, in proportion to 
the capital which is invested, than in the liquor business. 

In scores of cities labor temples have been built since 
the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect, and claims 
are made that this is due largely to prohibition. Pre- 
viously labor unions in many cities had meeting places 
above saloons where the rent was “free.” “In Denver 
we had one hundred eight unions meeting in twenty- 
eight different places, mostly above saloons,” declared 
a prominent Denver labor leader. “We could not get 
together because the liquor interests didn’t want to see 


310 SELECTED (ARTICLES 


us bunched. But when the state went dry, we were able 
to put it over and now we have a splendid labor temple, 
owned and controlled by the local unions.” St. Paul, 
Detroit and other cities where labor temples have re- 

cently been built tell the same story. . 

Is it not strange that labor banks in Washington, 
D.C., New York, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, Minne- 
apolis and other cities have all been organized since 
1920. Some labor leaders have said this movement would 
have come anyway, but isn’t the question pertinent? 

Union secretaries report that dues are paid more 
promptly than formerly. Perhaps this somewhat moti- 
vates the sentiment in favor of prohibition among local 
officials whose duty it is to see than this important phase 
of union business is attended to each month! 

Friends of prohibition in labor citcles also emphasize 
the fact that the liquor interests invariably opposed 
woman suffrage and direct legislation, two of the lead- 
ing legislative demands of the American labor move- 
ment. 

From all appearances the dry trade unionists are not 
planning to “lie down” while the wet drive is on, and 
interesting developments may be expected in connection 
with the attempt to persuade the American Federation 
of Labor to pull the liquor interests’ chestnuts out of 
the fire. 


DO BEER AND WINE PREVENT 
DRUNKENNESS??’ 


Not if history tells the truth. Distilled spirits were 
not even known, much less used, by the nations of west- 
ern Europe until after 1000 A.D., but drunkenness had 
been recorded of their peoples for centuries. Writers 
of almost two thousand years ago described the beer 
with which the nations in the west of Europe “intoxicate 


1 By Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. Scientific Temperance Journal. 32: 13-14. 
Spring, 1923. " 


PROHIBITION 311 


themselves,’ and the often unspeakable wine-drinking 
scenes in the great nations of that day. 

Spirits were not commonly used as beverages in Eng- 
land until the sixteenth century, but for nearly a thou- 
sand preceding years church officials had been issuing 
laws, decrees, and pastorals against drunkenness. 

Modern experience says, “No.” Of the drunkards 
received by the Ellikon Hospital for Inebriates, 1887- 
1893, there were thirty-nine out of every one hundred who 
drank only wine or beer or both. 

The British Board of Control (Liquor Traffic) found 
in London in 1916 that of several hundred men arrested 
for drunkenness, about 40 per cent had become drunk 
on beer or other malt liquors. 

In Massachusetts in 1895, some twenty-six hundred 
men and women were convicted of drunkenness whose 
drunkenness followed the use of wine or beer, about one 
in every seven convicted for this offense. Beer and wine 
shared responsibility with spirits for intoxicating some 
fourteen thousand others convicted of drunkenness; less 
than one thousand used spirits alone. About one woman 
in every five convicted of drunkennes had used only beer 
or wine. 

If there is “no drunkenness in wine-drinking coun- 
tries,’ why has France a law against drunkenness, and 
recently found it necessary to strengthen this law? If 
there is “no drunkenness in beer-drinking countries,” 
why are there this year (1922) in Germany thirty or 
more institutions for the treatment of drunkards? 

Not all users of alcoholic liquors are affected in the 
same way or to the same degree, even by spirits. But 
anyone who knows anything about drinking habits has 
seen men—and women—become intoxicated on beer or 
wine. It may take a little longer but they land in the 
same place as by the whisky route. 

The spirits drinker rides a full-blooded Arabian steed; the 


beer-drinker, a slow-going farm horse; they reach the same goal; 
the only difference is in time, 


312 SHUECT ED AAR TICLES 


IS BEER INTOXICATING??* 


1. Q. What is intoxicating liquor? 


A. An intoxicating liquor is one which when in- 
gested into the stomach and absorbed into the blood 
creates a toxic effect (on any or all of the body organs 
and functions). That effect may be unnoticed by the 
subject or those who surround him or it may be of such 
a character as to render him at once evidently unbalanced 
in some way to those who might happen to observe him. 


2. Q. Does the same amount of alcohol in a beverage 
atfect different people alike? 


A. A given amount of alcohol affects all persons 
alike in that it produces a toxic effect. The degree of 
resistance (of individuals) to any given toxic substance 
of a definite amount varies almost as widely as individuals 
vary (in their personal characteristics). This is true 
of all toxic substances as well as of alcohol. It is a 
matter of common observation as well that many persons 
can take an amount of alcohol without any observable 
effects which in other persons would produce all the 
degrees of drunkenness. It is not possible to fix any 
given quantity of alcohol in a beverage and at the same 
time establish a sharp dividing line. Any attempt to 
define quantity of any toxic substances and call it in- 
toxicating while a less quantity would be defined as non- 
intoxicating fails to take into consideration the remark- 
able variability of persons in respect to their resistance 
to toxic influences. 


3. Q. Does the health of the drinker have anything 
to do with at? 


A. The health of a person who drinks an intoxi- 
cating beverage undoubtedly has an influence on his 


Testimony of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, food and drug expert, at a 
New Jersey Legislative hearing March 1, 1920. 


PROHIBITION 313 


susceptibility. In a state of health the body is more 
resistant to all forms of infection than when in a de- 
bilitated state. A person in robust health may be ex- 
posed to the bacillus of pneumonia without succumbing. 
If his health has been depleted by a cold or an attack of 
influenza the same bacillis would produce pneumonia 
and probably death. The sane physician will not advise 
people in a state of health to undergo the possible dangers 
of infection. He may tell them, however, that they are 
less likely to succumb than when debilitated. 


4. Q. Does the age of the drinker make a difference? 


A. For the above reason the adult and the middle- 
aged man can withstand the effects of an intoxicating 
beverage better than a child or an old man. Neither 
health nor age, however, tends to modify the universal 
law of variable sensibility. 


5. Q. Does it have the same effect on an habitual 
user and a non-drinker? 


A. The fact that the human organism may become 
tolerant of a toxic substance by its continued use is a 
matter of universal knowledge. 


6. Q. Does a person become tolerant to the effect 
of alcohol? 


A. If one is poisoned by the bacillus of typhoid 
fever or smallpox and lives over this crisis he is practic- 
ally immune to these poisons subsequently. The man who 
drinks an alcoholic liquor continuously becomes able to 
dispose of larger quantities of this toxic substance than 
he possibly could do at the start. All these data illustrate 
the wonderful patience and perseverence of nature, who 
does all in her power to safeguard those who purposely 
or innocently take poisonous substances into their system. 


314 SELECTED ARTICLES 


7. QO. What are the different stages of intoxication? 


A. There are four well marked stages of alcoholic 
poisoning. 

The first stage marks the begmning of the 
toxic effect. If the quantity of alcohol is small even 
the subject may not be conscious of any toxic effect. It 
may, however, be measured by the delicate methods now 
in use of determinning the changes produced in the brain 
and the memory and in the nerve sensibility of the sub- 
ject. These determinations show that even in very small 
quantities alcohol produces a distinctly toxic effect. The 
functions of the intellect are at once harmfully affected, 
and the sensibility of the nerves of the eye and the so- 
called knee-jerk test is to a measurable degree sensibly 
affected. In my own case I have noticed this effect in 
playing chess, a game of which I have been very fond 
from early boyhood. In former times it was quite cus- 
tomary for chess players to have a glass of beer or wine 
when there was no stake in view, such as a champion- 
ship, but merely a game for pleasure. I soon noticed 
that when playing against an opponent of equal strength 
where as a rule the results would be 50-50 over a series 
of games they became 75 to 25 in his favor if I should 
drink a single glass of beer. This method of measure- 
_ ment of course is not quite so accurate, but is quite as 
convincing as the more delicate method described above. 
I describe this kind of alcoholic intoxication as one in 
which the subject himself is not conscious of it, and 
where ordinary observation fails to detect it. 

The second stage of alcoholic intoxication is one in 
which the subject if he is at all attentive to such matters 
feels that his condition is unusual. There is a certain 
feeling of warmth wholly illusory and due to a partial 
paralysis of the peripheral nerves which allow a greater 
quantity of blood in the capillaries. There is also a cer- 
tain feeling of elation and an apparent freedom of speech 
due to a specific influence of the coordinating organs of 


PROHIBITION 315 


the brain. There is at the same time a very great de- 
pression of intellectual acuteness. This condition may 
or may not be observed by the bystanders just in pro- 
portion as the subject has greater or less control of his 
actions, 

The third stage of alcoholic intoxication is one in 
which the ordinary symptoms of drunkenness are mani- 
fested. These symptoms vary with the individuality of 
the victim. He may become taciturn and morose or he 
may be boisterous and voluble or even hilarious. His 
control of locomotion and other muscular movements is 
more or less disturbed and he may display an acute 
locomotor ataxia. All of his companions know that he 
is drunk. 

There is a fourth stage of alcoholic intoxication in 
which the victim sinks into entire insensibility. His face 
and breathing remind one of a person suffering from 
apoplexy and in extreme cases death supervenes. 


8. QO.T1s visible intoxication essential to intoxication? 


A. Visible intoxication is not essential to intoxi- 
cation. ‘The sun is totally eclipsed even if we do not see 
the shadow of the moon. When a person gets drunk 
the first glass he drinks is just as much responsible for 
his condition as the last one. Intoxication has a begin- 
ning and that beginning is as much intoxication as the 
final death struggle of the man who dies from alcoholic 
intoxication. Every step is essential to the whole jour- 
ney. [he man who doesn’t take the first step doesn’t 
die of the last one. 


9. QO. What should be the test m determining 
whether a certain liquor or a certaim alcoholic content 
is mtoxicating ? 


A. The test which is to be applied in determining 
whether an alcoholic liquor is intoxicating is the well 


316 SELECTED ARTICLES 


known fact that it intoxicates. The question of quantity 
is not at all essential. If the effect is produced that effect 
must have had a start. That start is made by the in- — 
toxicating beverage which produces the effect. It must 
have started with the first drink; even if that step 1s 
difficult to perceive it must have been taken. No system 
of faulty logic can eliminate it. No camouflage of terms 
can convince a reasonable man that the first step was 
not taken. 


10. Q. Is the test for an ordinary man the safe one? 


A. The test for an ordinary man is a good one 
for that man but a test on one person is no means of 
determining the acuteness of the effect on another per- 
son. I have read the affidavits in which a certain number 
of men were given certain quantities of an intoxicating 
beverage containing a certain quantity of alcohol. ‘The 
wise individual who conducted the experiment looked the 
men over and decided that they were not intoxicated. I 
find no evidence that the sensibility of the nerves of the 
men were not impaired. I saw no account of the delay 
in the reaction of the knee jerk. I saw no account of 
any intellectual problem which they had solved before 
or after the experiment. In every one of these cases 
there may have been very pronounced intoxication, 
though perhaps none of the symptoms of ordinary 
drunkenness were manifested. A scientific conclusion on 
the observations made would be this, these men are not 
drunk in the ordinary sense of that term. They are per- 
haps intoxicated in the proper sense of that term. There 
are about 109,999,990 people in this country who have 
not been tested by this method. If only one of the whole 
number should exhibit signs of drunkenness under this 
debauch, the conclusions drawn would be utterly unten- 
able. 

In the opinion of our law makers, a beverage 
which contains not over a half of a fluid ounce per gal- 


PROHIBITION 317 


lon is not considered intoxicating. That, of course, is 
the legislative point of view. It is a safeguard which 
is practically effective and with which I have no quarrel, 
nor will I criticize the wisdom of our law makers in 
putting it so high. That, however, does not in any way 
weaken the argument that alcohol is a toxic substance. 
It is a wise legislative provision to prevent harm from 
increasing quantities of this toxic ingredient in beverages 
and is a matter which waits for revision or confirmation 
by the courts. There is no witness whose testimony I 
have read in this case who denies that alcohol is in- 
toxicating. There is, therefore, some limit which must 
be set by somebody. 


11. Q. Is 2.75 per cent beer intoxicating? 


A. In regard to the question: Is 2.75 per cent 
beer intoxicating? I refer to the discussion above. In 
my opinion I have no doubt of that fact. It may even, 
as I have seen in my own experience, produce the third 
state of intoxication, namely drunkenness. 


12. Q. Is ¥% of 1 per cent a safe standard? 


A. My own personal opinion is that the Congress 
of the United States might have very properly fixed a 
lower standard than % of 1 per cent. For all practical 
purposes, however, I am strongly of the opinion that 
Y of 1 per cent is as high a toleration of an intoxicating 
substance in a beverage as Congress should have allowed. 


BERG THES BRUGARIZE Ris 


Contrary to generally accepted belief beer is propor- 
tionately much more noxious than are wines or liquors. 
While liquor makes a man brutal and dulls his judg- 
ment, beer makes him slow-witted and abolishes judg- 


1By Dr. Edwin F. Bowers. Alcohol, Its Influence on Mind and 
Body. p. 65-72. 


318 SELECTED PARI D Is 


ment. And, while wine or brandy, in sufficient quantity, 
makes a man ‘crazy, beer, in corresponding quantity, 
makes him stupid. And between insanity and stupidity 
there is merely a question of choice. Some of us prefer 
an interesting maniac to a brutalized idiot. 

The actual reason for this brutalization and sottish- 
ness has been known for only a few years—is even yet 
not generally understood. Yet it is very simple. For, 
in addition to the small whisky glass of alcohol in each 
pint of beer, beer also contains a large and varying per- 
centage of lupulin—the active principle of hops. 

The so-called lupulin glands of the hops secrete an 
ethereal oil consisting of various terpenes—substances 
similar to turpentine oil—which hold the other elements 
in solution. Among these elements are the hop acids and 
resins. 

We used to think that we got all the “rosin” with 
which we varnished our kidney cells from the pitch lin- 
ing of the beer barrels. But we know now that we get 
our kidney shellac from the hops which enter into the 
composition of the beer. These terpenes act powerfully 
and disastrously upon the nervous system as well as upon 
the kidneys. 

The alkaloids, too, have a stupifying action on the 
nerves. For the hop belongs to the hemp group, and is 
closely related to Indian hemp. On the female blossom 
of Indian hemp, as on the female blossom of hops, we 
find glands holding a narcotic, sticky, bitter-tasting sub- 
stance, which is the active element of hashish. 

Hashish is used largely by the various Mohammedan 
peoples of west and south Africa, and in the Malay 
Archipelago, for narcotic purposes. In the intermediary 
stage—before complete stupification sets in—these hemp 
habitues become dangerously violent—even to running 
amuck with a huge creese, or crooked-bladed dagger— 
stabbing and slashing, until they are mercifully killed 
in their tracks. 


PROHIBITION 319 


Now, hashish contains exactly the same elements as 
are found in the lupulin glands of hops—bitter-tasting 
resins, an ethereal oil, and one or more alkaloids. There- 
fore, hops exert the same effect on the human body as 
does hashish—differing only in degree. 

Naturally, in making this comparison, we must re- 
member that hashish is used in concentrated form, while 
there is relatively but a small amount of the hemp ele- 
ments in beer. But this is somewhat offset by the fact 
that a beer drinker imbibes—in his favorite beverage— 
sufficient lupulin to make up considerable of the de- 
ficiency. 

Professor Reinitzer, of the Polytechnic at Graz, has 
demonstrated that it is due to the preservative action 
of the hop resins that it is possible to “keep” beer. The 
bacterial life-forms in beer (the sarcina organisms) are 
hindered from multiplying by the resins contained in the 
hops. This assists the alcohol in preventing undue fer- 
mentation. So the internal organs of a beer drinker 
undergo a double process of pickling, which makes him 
just about 50 per cent worse off than he would be if 
he confined himself exclusively to alcohol. 

Here we have rational and scientific explanations as 
to why excessive beer drinking is accompanied by that 
stupidity and clumsy heaviness of mind peculiar to those 
who indulge unwisely and unwell in the beverage that 
anathematized Gambrinus. The vivacity and brilliance 
of wit which enable the Munich beer drinker, for in- 
stance, to stare stupidly into his beer mug for an hour 
at a time, are typical symptoms of hemp poisoning— 
plus alcoholism. And either alone is bad enough—in 
all conscience. 

It would be most interesting if Kraepelin, Benedict, 
Ascheffenburg, or some other physiologist were to make 
a series of experiments with the lupulin extracted from 
a given quantity of beer, to determine exactly how much 
extra loss in memory, correlation, response, accuracy, 


320 SELEG DED iy Wi eli5 


and work-value follows the use of beer—as compared 
with undoped alcohol. 

We have just seen that alcohol plus lupulin equals 
brutishness. It might be instructive to amplify this 
knowledge somewhat—to convince ourselves that the 
whisky devil cannot be driven out by the beer Beelzebub. 
Here are a few of the reasons why. 

Professor Forel, of the University of Zurich, reported 
that at the Ellikon Sanatorium—the first great institution 
of Europe to forswear alcohol in therapeutics—the num- 
ber of alcoholists outnumbered the spirit alcoholists 
nine to one. 

Dr. Hueppe and Professor Przibram, of Prague, 
have demonstrated, by the incontrovertible evidence of 
the autopsy table, that beer injures more hearts, livers, 
and kidneys than does brandy. 

The great physiologist, Welminsky, has shown that 
the belief that beer drinkers do not suffer from delirium 
tremens is a fleeting fitful fancy. He has given us 
accurate statistics proving that in Bohemia and other 
European countries—with a beery past, present, and 
perhaps future—a far greater number of the delirious 
have become so through beer than through spirits drink- 
ing. 
And Dr. Delbrueck adds, for our edification, that 
beer and wine lands (France, Germany, Belgium, and 
Bavaria) are the most alcohol drenched, and that the 
whisky and brandy lands (Sweden and Norway) the 
least so. He concludes that the beer danger is for the 
future far greater than the spirits danger. 

Also, Dr. August Smith, of Schloss Marbach, has 
reported experiments which prove positively that beer 
drinking—even more than spirit drinking—produced in- 
variably a dilation of the heart, and coincidentally causes 
all the pathological effects upon the circulatory system 
that accompany heart dilation. 

And here is something that may give the beer drinker 
pause. In the Reintzer prisms, displayed conspicuously 


PROHIBITION 321 


in the anti-alcohol exhibitions of Europe, one cube repre- 
sents a pint of pure alcohol—sufficient to kill a man on 
the spot. Alongside of this is a prism standing for 14.6 
pints of alcohol—the amount a man who drinks a pint 
of beer daily takes into his system each year. It is a 
relatively simple problem to estimate from these com- 
parisons just to what extent and how fatuously a beer 
drinker, in pursuing his favorite avocation, is flirting 
with the undertaker. 

A device much used in Europe for demonstrating the 
alcoholic content of beer, might with profit be employed 
in this country. This consists of an ordinary and most 
familiar looking bottle of brown beer, through the cork 
of which a small hole has been punched. This bottle is 
set over a heating apparatus, and after two minutes the 
alcohol evaporates and passes up through the hole. The 
gas is then ignited, and, needless to say, it makes a very 
pretty and most illuminating illumination. 

And to prove, out of their own mouths, that the 
Germans are not nearly so enthusiastic about beer as 
some pro-beerists would have us believe, we have but 
to glance at these excerpts from an army pamphlet en- 
titled “Alcohol and the Power of Resistance,” circulated 
widely among German soldiers. 

There is no justification for calling beer “liquid bread,” a 
glass of heavy beer costing 25 pfennigs has no more nourishment 
than a piece of cheese costing one pfennig. ... Almost all ex- 
cessive disturbances in the army are traced to drink. ... It is 
mostly beer that causes the mischief. Beer is not the harmless 
drink it is supposed to be. 

The most sinister thing about beer is this apparent 
harmlessness. Yet almost invariably the drink habit is 
inaugurated through the use of beer. Scientific men and 
sociologists in general fail to agree with brewers in their 
contention that beer drives out stronger liquors. Pro- 
fessor Strumpel of Breslau, Germany, says, “Nothing 
is more erroneous than to think of diminishing the 
destructive effects of alcoholism by substituting beer for 
other alcoholic drinks,” And Dr. Howard A, Kelley of 


322 SELEGTED, ARTICLES 


Johns Hopkins University says, “I consider, with eminent 
German authorities of enormous experience, that beer 
is exceedingly injurious and dangerous as a beverage.”’ 
And so it is. For of eighteen cases of drunkenness 
appearing before a police court judge “hand running” 
recently, (1916), fifteen said they had been drinking 
beer. Three old topers had been using whisky. Half 
of these beer cases involved assault and battery or de- 
struction of property. 

Even as a “hot weather drink’ beer is a broken reed 
upon which to lean. For Dr. Alfred Plehn, world 
famous as a tropical hygienist, warns explicitly against 
its use, arguing that, in his experience, it is especially 
suited, under pathological conditions a hot climate creates, 
to create disturbances in the stomach and digestion, and 
in this way to prepare the ground for dysentery. 


MASSACHUSETTS: EXPERIENCE WUT Paes 
EMPTING BEER FROM PROHIBITION? 


Among the many reasons for including beer under 
prohibition laws is the instructive experience of Massa- 
chusetts nearly fifty years ago with the plan of exempting 
beer. It proved a distinct failure. 


BEER SHOPS PRODUCE MISERY 


In 1870, Massachusetts so altered its then prohibitory 
law as to allow the sale of malt liquor in all places un- 
less there was a local vote to forbid. The next year the 
law was changed so as to require a vote in order to 
allow such sale. The results were so conspicuously dis- 
astrous that in 1873 the laws permitting the sale of beer 
were repealed in accordance with a recommendation of 
the governor of the state who said in his inaugural 
address: 


1By Cora Frances Stoddard, Executive Secretary, Scientific Temper- 
ance Federation. Boston, Mass. 


PROHIBITION 323 


If we are to accept the evidence of those who have had the 
most painful experience of the miseries produced by these 
places (beer-shops) they are among the greatest obstacles to 
the social and moral progress of the community. 


INCREASED INTOXICATION AND ITs RESULTS 


The conditions which prevailed in Massachusetts dur- 
ing this period when malt liquors were sold while spiritu- 
ous liquors were prohibited revealed strongly the im- 
portant fact that intoxication and its results markedly 
increased during the period of beer-selling as compared 
with the previous prohibition period. 

Under the cover of beer, the sale of stronger liquors 
increased so that, in addition to the results of increased 
beer-drinking, the malt liquors made it possible for all 
sorts of stronger liquors to be sold, precisely the ex- 
perience which Georgia recently had before she also pro- 
hibited malt liquors. 


THE SouRCEs OF EVIDENCE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS 
EXPERIENCE 


The following evidence on the situation in Massa- 
chusetts under the beer regime is taken from two sources: 
(1) Alcohol and the State, a volume written in 1880, 
less than a decade after the beer experience, by Judge 
Robert C. Pitman, LL.D., Associate Justice of the Su- 
perior Court of Massachusetts; and (2) the report of 
commissioners appointed by the Governor-General of 
Canada in 1874 to visit states of the United States in 
which the prohibitory laws were then or had been in 
force. The commissioners were instructed “to make 
inquiry into the success which had attended the working 
of such laws and to report thereon as well as on other 
essential facts connected with the same.” 

The Canadian commissioners visited six states, “ob- 
tained interviews with governors, ex-governors, secre- 
taries of states, army officers, senators, members of Con- 
gress, judges of the supreme, superior, and police courts, 


324 SELEGTE DSA RIMGUES 


district attorneys, mayors, ex-mayors, aldermen, over- 
seers of the poor, selectmen, jailors, trial justices, city 
marshals, editors, chiefs of police, employers of labor 
and influential citizens.’”’ They studied official documents, 
visited all sorts of quarters in the cities, and in Maine 
and Massachusetts, rural districts. Special pains were 
taken to ensure accuracy by reading, before leaving, to 
persons who made statements, notes taken of such state- 
ments, so that there should be no misrepresentations. 

The entire report, now a rare document out of print, 
is interesting in its picture of the prohibition period in 
the United States. We shall quote here, however, only 
what relates to the beer experience in Massachusetts. 
The complete report on this point is reproduced. Head- 
ings only have been inserted. The report says: 

In the Legislature of 1870, an Act was passed exempting 
cider and malt liquors from the prohibitory law, but giving 
municipalities the right to vote license for the sale of these 
liquors or to prohibit the sale; and in 1873 the Legislature re- 
pealed the Act and restored Prohibition as far as malt liquors 
were concerned, but still exempting cider. The following testi- 
monies and figures show the results of this partial liberation of 
certain liquors from the grasp of Prohibition: 

In 1870 and 1871 the people of New Bedford voted “no 
license,” but in May, 1872, they carried a license vote by a small 
majority. 

Of the results the commission reports Judge Borden 
of this city as saying: 

The beer law appears to make considerable difference to the 
police court. The number of criminal prosecutions in the court 
from May 7 to October 1, 1870, under the prohibitory law, was 
200; same time in 1871, under the same law, was 219; same 
time in 1872, under the beer law, 454. The cases named in 1871 
include 83 for drunkenness and 46 for assaults; in 1872, 274 
cases of drunkenness and 67 for assaults. Besides the total of 
454 this year, 41 persons arrested were allowed to go without 


prosecution, which is about three times the number dismissed in 
that way during the same months of 1871. 


The commission found in the reports of the New 
Bedford mayor and city marshal the following signifi- 
cant figures; 


PROHIBITION 325 


Whole number of arrests, 1871 (Prohibition) ...... 462 
PAPTIT OHIES SASL o sem aiede wis Galen cotter ane ts Sala. lo. 50! yw ec are 188 
Whole number of arrests, 1872 (Beer sold) ...... 779 
TOPTUNKEHNESS Ea ele ake ee teil ol emrcery ns tas fee aes 415 
Lodgers in stations, 1871 (Prohibition) ........... 348 
Lodgers in stations, 1872 (Beer sold) ............ 434 


“Thus exhibiting,” says the commission, “an imcrease 
of over 68 per cent in the aggregate number of crimes, 
over 120 per cent in cases of drunkenness (Italics ours. ) 


HousrE oF CORRECTION 


Number of commitments from New Bedford in 1871, was 93 
Number of commitments from New Bedford in 1872, was 180 
Or an increase of about 97 per cent. 


WoRKHOUSE 


Number of commitments from New Bedford in 1871, was 37 
Number of commitments from New Bediord in 1872, was 69 
Or an increase of about 95 per cent. 


Trial Justice E. Southworth said: 


So far as I am able to give an opinion of the working of the 
beer law, it would be that we may as well have a law licensing 
the sale of all other intoxicating liquors; for everything, almost, 
that will intoxicate, is sold, or has been, by the name of beer. 
I have no belief in any beer law. I know, or I think I do, that 
drunkenness has largely increased under its operations. 


The commission quotes Trial Justice Newton Morse 
of Natick (Middlesex County; population 6,404) as say- 


ing, 


Whole number of prosecutions for all offenses from July 20, 
1870, to date, 655; liquor prosecutions for the same time, 614; 
prosecutions for drunkenness, 162. Of the remaining 279 cases, 
178 are the direct results of liquor selling and drinking. I voted 
in the Legislature of 1869-70 for the beer law, as I believed in 
the interests of temperance and the Republican party. With 
the experience of the last two years, I shall this year vote against 
the beer law, in the same interest. The prosecutions for drunk- 
enness for the last year, and especially the last part, have in- 
creased one-third. 


Justice Hamlett Bates of the Chelsea Police Court 
said (January 3, 1873): 


326 SELECTED PAR TICLES 


The records of the court here exhibited the number of cases 
for drunkenness for the three years past as follows: 


In 1879 (Prohibition up to September) ............ I4I 
Inie7reGbeety law in sOperatiom) wu cise fener eat eee 188 
In r872ndbeer law yin) operation) is cta seis a screenees 260 


The sale of beer should not be legalized; almost every beer 
saloon is a rum shop. For violation of the law, imprisonment 
instead of fines should be imposed, not for a few days, but for 
months. 


From the justice of the First District Court: 


My district includes six towns, to-wit: Sturbridge, South- 
bridge, Charlton, Dudley, Webster, and Oxford. 

The sale of beer is prohibited in all of them. There is not 
an open bar in the district, but liquor is sold to a limited extent 
in dwelling houses, and by persons who carry it in their pockets. 

Should the sale of beer in the above named towns be permitted 
by vote, crime would increase there 50 per cent within a month. 
To permit the sale of beer by law is only a deceptive method 
whereby the sale of all kinds and quantities of intoxicating 
liquors is legalized and clothed with a kind of respectability 
which does not belong to that nefarious business—Report of 
Clarke Jeilson, Justice of the First District Court, County of 
Worcester, and Mayor of Worcester. 


VITIATED PROHIBITORY LAW 


One of the effects of the free sale of malt liquors is to in- 
crease the crime of drunkenness, and multiply by other forms 
the violation of the criminal law. The sale of these liquors is 
made a cover for the sale of spirituous liquors generally. Under 
the laws of 1870, the sale of malt liquor was authorized for 
several months in the town by vote of the inhabitants. Efforts 
to enforce the prohibitory law, or what there was left of it, 
during that period were almost nugatory. In no way, as it 
seems to me, can a greater blow be given to the prohibitory law, 
or its purpose be more surely defeated, than by legalizing the 
sale of malt liquors— J. Rockwell, Trial Justice and Judge of 
District Court, Berkshire. 


RESULTS SHOWN BY JAIL AND PRISON REPORTS 


By a reference to a former part of this report it will 
be seen that in 1867 the prohibitory law was quite well 
enforced in Boston, so much so as to reduce the revenue 
receipts in one district from $22,000 to $6,000 per month. 


1 Population 19,000. 


—_ 


SS ee eae 


PROHIBITION 327 


From the statistics of Boston, we gather the follow- 
ing figures: 


October 1) 18077, confinediinv Sutoleyatle. ice kee ee 173 
Cho Dera Le LOT Ouse cei tists tre mMeeMT Cha oss argos aie cy 222 
Ditlerencesin: favor Oli DEOMIDIION 6. 6's 5 oe a 49 ~-—— 
SeUIINiLted me Omr OG lion) |allusitrm iO fee tet fleet e's oe eles 3,736 
Omitted tan OU tOlig gy) ailmiMgeLO7O eee. via s's clclete « <by' ate 5,262 
Ditterencesin, Lavo OLepLOniDition ar. sek. a « 1,526 so 
Committed to all the jails in the state in 1867.......... 5,770 
Committed to all the jails in the state in 1870.......... 7,850 
Difference, in gavor Olsprohibitione css ys: 2,080 ee 
Compiited sou Wity PTISOM BOSTON Ay TOO 4. 6 v's 6 dbs 2 10,429 
iGomimitted (ton City 2 risom eDOstOn ld 700d seis 6/0 64 oie 12,862 
Difference in favor of prohibition........... 2138 —— 
Committed to all the Houses of Correction in the 
STA CRATE TL OU shige ete REAM IMIS taco, oe Sa. vihece 43 3,820 
Committed to all the Houses of Correction in the 
SEALEPITI] O70 Pep een erat P eer TAT CITI ose clea: Sur tats 5,477 
Didrerence: injtavor OL prohibition... os. 6... 1,048 -_-— 


STATE PRISON 


IPR ULI LOOT rome ee Meee TE itp bad nt be 128 
Ccahaehang (anole ben bp hob Pe VAG pce y pera teeNsr Annals Alba Lk. eu A aN 177 
IDiMTerenCeuIN Tt AaVOry OL. IDrOni bition: sei kt ke 49 ao 
AVerAPe tii DeEnvVOM@ODVICLS i807. vei 8). |s oe ele ain te 537 
PV eTASeSIIIMN DET OS CONVICLS IN eIOZO PI nee vecsiccist oceans 504 
Differences sn tayvor Gliyprohipitione ase)... de oe 57 — 
Total number of persons in State Prison in 1867........ 646 
Total number of persons in State Prison in 1870........ 774 
Dierence dim taAvOne Om  PLOniplmOM.. Nowe eee 128 — 


Such is the official report of the Canadian commis- 
sion on Massachusetts’ experience with exempting beer 
from her prohibitory law. It showed that drunkenness, 
crime, violation of the liquor law, distinctly increased 
and that under the cover of malt liquors, the sale of the 
stronger beverages not only increased, but was far more 
difficult to control than when malt liquors were included 

1 As the prohibition law was not repealed until 1870 these figures ob- 


viously do not show the full disadvantages of the “‘beer” period over the 
prohibition period.—C. F. S. 


328 SELEG PRD MARTTGH ES 


in prohibition. The exemption of malt liquors practically 
vitiated the prohibition law. 

The evidence submitted by Judge Pitman was of the 
same general tenor. Following are some selections which 
he made “from a mass of testimony from the most re- 
liable sources.” 


THe Beer-SHop Is THE RuM SHop IN DISGUISE 


The Boston Chief of Police, in December, 1870, reported that 
out of 2,584 places in Boston where liquor is sold, only seventeen 
sell lager-beer alone. 

The Chief Constable of the Commonwealth, under date Octo- 
ber 3d, writes: “That not exceeding five per cent of the retail 
dealers who pretend to sell ale, porter, strong beer, and lager- 
beer, confine or limit their trade to malt liquors only. The service 
of the search warrants almost invariably discloses the fact that 
lager-beer saloons, so-called, keep and sell more or less distilled 
liquors.” 

In reply to letters of inquiry addressed to District Attorneys, 
generally uniform answers on this point were received. 

The District Attorney of Essex writes: “According to the 
evidence which I have, beer-shops where nothing stronger is kept 
or sold are as scarce as men entirely without sin.” 

The District Attorney of the Western District: “I believe, 
wherever beer is sold, strong liquors are also sold.” 

The District Attorney of the Northwestern District: “The 
difficulty is that the beer traffic should be used as a cover for 
rum-selling. That it is so used can not be denied.” 

The Attorney of Worcester County: “The exemption of beer 
affords a cover under which to sell spirituous liquors.” 

A like testimony is borne by the justices of police and similar 
courts. We select a few: Chelsea: “About every deer saloon is 
a rumshop.” Worcester: “In saloons where the sale of beer is 
permitted by law, there spirituous liquors can usually be ob- 
tained.” Springfield: “All sorts of spirituous and intoxicating 
liquors are sold under cover of such license.” 

To multiply evidence on this point is needless. It is clear 
that the Governor was amply justified in declaring in his mes- 
sage that ‘a beer-shop, so-called, has come to mean genereiuy 
a place where all kinds of intoxicating liquors are furnished.” 


BEER A NULLIFIER 


“This is a corollary,” said Judge Pitman, “from the last 
proposition; but it is capable of being made more impressive 
from independent proof. The Police Commissioners of the 
State, in the First Annual Report, say: “The ale and beer law 
is a veil that covers much that is vile, and it is one that is dif- 


~~ ie ee li 


PROHIBITION 429 


ficult for the officers to lift or see through; and, under its pro- 
tection, every vile compound that ever poisoned the human 
system may be sold almost with impunity.” 

In his last report, the present Chief Constable said: “While 
it is the sole duty of the force to execute the laws, I may be 
permitted to say that the authority now given for the sale of 
ale embarrasses and hinders the force in their attempts to prose- 
cute for the sale of liquors forbidden by law.” 

One of the most intelligent and active of the deputy State 
Constables writes: “I believe it is almost useless to attempt to 
enforce the law against spirituous liquors while all persons are 
allowed to sell malt liquors.” 

The District Attorney of Worcester County says: “I have 
no doubt that the beer traffic is adverse to the enforcement of 
the liquor law. I do not well understand how the friends of 
that law can hope to enforce it when the exemption of beer 
affords a cover.” 

The Justice of the Police Court of Springfield says: “I think 
licensing the sale of ale and beer much increases the difficulty 
of enforcing the prohibitory law;” while the Mayor of the city 
of Worcester declares that “to permit the sale of beer by law 
is only a deceptive method whereby the sale of all kinds and 
quantities of intoxicating liquors is legalized and clothed with a 
kind of respectability which does not belong to that nefarious 
business.” 

Mayor Richmond, who earned a reputation for the vigorous 
and thorough enforcement of the prohibitory law in New Bed- 
ford, said in his valedictory in 1872: “It will be remembered 
that, on the first Tuesday of May last, our city voted to allow 
the sale of ale and beer. The result has proved that the legaliz- 
ing the ale and beer-shop has been a curse to our city, and car- 
ried misery to hundreds of homes in our midst. They are noth- 
ing but shields to cover the stealthy sales of all intoxicating 
drinks, and are almost a thorough protection of the rum-seller 
against the enforcement of the prolibitory law,” 

The causes which render the detection and conviction of 
sellers of distilled liquors difficult where the sale of fermented 
liquor is lawful, lie upon the surface, and are not difficult to 
see. . 


BEER A STIMULANT OF CRIME 


Among many persons of some general intelligence, a notion 
prevails that fermented liquors rarely excite to crime. Such is 
not the judgment of those practically conversant with our crimi- 
nal courts; such is far from the testimony of criminals them- 
selves. 


BEER AND CRIME 
In the nature of the case it was impossible for off- 


cials to determine exactly what proportion of the in- 
creased drunkenness crime was due to beer and what to 


330 SELECTEDUARTICLES 


spirits. Many of the persons brought to court evidently 
themselves believed that beer was intoxicating and capable 
of putting them into a condition for committing offences 
as they repeatedly claimed beer “as their usual tipple.” 
Judge Pitman quotes an interesting expression of opinion 
from the Essex County District Attorney to the effect 
that the “immediate influence and effect (of beer) upon 
crime is more dangerous to the community than the 
stronger liquors, in this way: The excessive use of the 
stronger drinks is lable to make men drunk and help- 
less, unable to do much harm, while beer excites men to 
acts of violence, desperation and crime.” 


BEER TEMPTATION TO YOUTH 


Further difficulties experienced during the beer period 
in Massachusetts lay in the object lesson and incentive 
to drink which the sale of beer presented to youth and 
to addicts trying to free themselves from the drink habit. 

To exempt beer from the provisions of the prohibition 
laws claiming that it is non-intoxicating is a direct in- 
vitation to youth to frequent the beer saloon as they would 
a soda water fountain or dry goods. store. While the beer 
law was in operation in Massachusets, Judge Pitman re- 
lated that the Rev. Mr. Coombs, one of the agents for 
the State Temperance Alliance for visiting the public 
schools, reported that “In one town, seventy-five pupils 
told me that they had been more or less intoxicated. In 
twelve cases where boys came into school drunk, or were 
found to be so in the school room, I was told that six 
of them drank cider (which was also exempt from pro- 
hibition.) Careful examination will show that nineteen 
out of twenty of the pupils who have been intoxicated 
were under the influence of cider or beer.” 


LEp To ALCOHOLIC HABITS 


Two superintendents of the Boston Washingtonian 
Home which at that time had had one of the widest 


—— ae 


PROHIBITION 331 


experiences with inebriates, were emphatic in their testt- 
mony that beer and other so-called light beverages in- 
itiated the drink habit in the majority of cases. 


INCREASED DIFFICULTIES OF REFORM 


Beer was also an “unqualifiedly hindering’ cause in 
the thorough reform of inebriates. “A large proportion 
of backsliders stumble over these light drinks who 
would hesitate long before they would dare meddle with 
stronger liquors.”’ This is a matter of no small impor- 
tance in a would-be prohibition state. 


THE TESTIMONY OF ANCIENT LAWS 


In view of the proposition to exempt beer from the 
operations of the prohibition laws, it is pertinent to recall 
Judge Pitman’s comment on this fact from a legal point 
of view: 


In a resumé of the license laws of Massachusetts I have called 
attention to the fact that from the earliest years beer and cider 
took their place beside “strong waters” or distilled liquors as 
inhibited without license. And I am not aware that the laws 
of other states differed in this respect. ... It is quite evident 
that our forefathers early learned what were intoxicating liquors, 
if they did not find out how to manage them. .. . Long before 
the temperance pledge embraced abstinence from them, the partial 
legislator had determined that fermented liquors needed the 
same measure of restraint as distilled. . . . Legislation against 
an evil is both confession of it and testimony against it. And 
where the course of legislation is uniform and long continued, 
the testimony is weighty. 


The experience of Massachusetts with permitting beer 
selling while prohibiting the sale of other liquors is thus 
definitely on record. Drunkenness increased, crime in- 
creased, poverty increased, the sale of stronger liquors 
under cover of malt liquors increased, the difficulties of 
enforcement of the prohibitory sections of the law were 
vastly increased—and after only three years the beer law 
was repealed. 


332 SELECTED) ARTICLES 


ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF PROHIBITION * 


National prohibition began with us as a war-time 
expedient and was not pretended to be anything else. 
The nation’s utmost producing capacity we needed that 
we might launch the thousand ships, make the millions 
of shells, clothe and arm the millions of soldiers with 
which the war was to be won. We could never have 
production at its best and also have John Barleycorn, 
and before this ironvisaged fact Barleycorn must go 
skipping. All the experiments with state-wide prohibi- 
tion had shown the same finalities. Everywhere pro- 
duction had been stimulated, production costs had been 
reduced in proportion to the output. It was this reve- 
lation that spread the tide from state to state. On De- 
cember 1, 1917, eight months after we entered the war, 
President Wilson gave the last-needed touch to the argu- 
ment by suspending by proclamation the brewing of beer 
and establishing about coal-mines and munition plants a 
state of absolute prohibition of all liquor. 

When war-time prohibition succeeded, it merely con- 
firmed all this. Every condition of industrial production 
notably improved wherever the saloon was abolished. 
Without expense, the yield of mine or factory was en- 
larged. Employers had the equivalent of an increased 
force of workers without an increase in the pay-roll. For 
years augmented production efficiency had been much in 
the thought of every wise manufacturer. How many 
“speeding-up” systems, how many well devised plans of 
premiums and rewards had been proposed, how many 
strikes they had caused or threatened, memory flags to 
recall. Now all these ends were achieved by the simple 
and inexpensive means of throwing out the beer-can. 
Under such conditions, the beer-can was out to stay out. 

The theory of prohibition may be good or bad; it is 
to the physical fact of prohibition that we chiefly owe 


1 By Charles E. Russell. Century Magazine. 107: 328-31. January, 
1924. 


PROHIBITION 333 


the strangely placid economic waters in which we now 
navigate. Ata time of profound agricultural depression 
all other industry should suffer. Other industry does 
not suffer now, but does more than usualy well because 
increased production efficiency enables production to 
stand the strain of raised wage levels. 

Foreigners are beginning to note these facts, even 
if we ignore them. After two years of American pro- 
hibition, Mr. G. C. Vyle, a British business man and 
anti-prohibitionist, came to this country to observe the 
working of the new reform. On his return he was 
quoted as declaring in a speech at Birmingham that seven 
American working-men with the same plant, same ma- 
terials, same facilities, would produce more than ten 
British working-men. 

Mr. C. A. McCurdy, member of the British Parlia- 
ment from Northampton, was lately quoted as saying to 
the business men of Leeds, England, that the American 
worker was producing, man for man, three times as 
much as the British worker, and he gave figures from 
the shoe industry to enforce his statement. He added 
that while in Great Britain the average output of coal 
had declined from three hundred twelve tons a year for 
each miner to two hundred fifty-nine tons, the average 
output in the United States had increased from four hun- 
dred tons for each miner to six hundred eighty-one tons. 

The president of a Pittsburgh manufacturing com- 
pany was quoted in 1922 as saying: 

Prohibition has been an incalculable economic and moral bless- 
ing to millions of our people and to the nation as a whole. There 
is far less drunkenness and waste of time and money; there is 
greater steadiness among laborers, more saving of money, better 
care of homes. 

“Greater steadiness among laborers.” He might have 
stopped there. It told the whole story. 

Why important business was of the opinion that pro- 
hibition was useful to it may be gathered from the figures 
that show how increased production efficiently spread its 
results outward from the basic enterprises. 


aoe. SELECTED ARTICLES 

In the first year of national prohibition the business 
of the department stores of America increased 17 per 
cent, of the chain grocery stores 43 per cent, of the chain 
drug stores 19 per cent, of the chain shoe stores 21 per 
cent, of the chain 5 and 10 cent stores, 18 per cent. Esti- 
mates of the annual increased revenue for the moving- 
picture business that prohibition has wrought are made 
in hundreds of millions of dollars. 

In six hundred twenty savings banks the deposits 
increased under one year of prohibition by $6,001,750,000 
against an increase of $4,509,000,000 the previous year. 

The average number of life-insurance policies out- 
standing in the years 1917 and 1918 was 12,175,000, and 
in the years 1920 and 1921 it was 17,198,000; the increase 
in the value of the policies was 55 per cent. 

These are but samples. All the enterprises I men- 
tion are intimately connected with or owned by the most 
important financial concerns of the country. In view of 
such facts it seems idle to talk of the economic power 
of the liquor trade, or even to cite racial habits, as any- 
where any barrier to a similar transformation. 

But the next link in the progression is still more 
interesting, still more suggestive. In our industrial 
civilization the international struggle for markets grows 
every day more intense. Production efficiency is pro- 
duction economy. By exactly how much American pro- 
hibition has increased American productive efficiency is 
still to be put into figures, but we know enough about it 
to know that it is an increase of momentous importance 
in the world-wide market arena. Even those that have 
estimated the gain at 30 per cent, may not be extrava- 
gant. One thing that is clear is that it has put America 
into a position she never before occupied in these con- 
tests. For years previous to the war, international dis- 
tribution was adjusted to a certain well known balance 
of producing conditions. The admittedly superior in- 
telligence and skill of the American working-man were 
offset by the high American wage scale; otherwise, 


PROHIBITION 335 


American production would have flooded the world. Pro- 
hibition in America has dislocated this adjustment. By 
increasing efficiency it has worked a virtual reduction 
in the relative American wage scale. ‘This is hardly 
short of revolution. When we recall that in some of 
the competing nations, as in Great Britain, production 
is already jeoparded by taxation, by labor troubles, by 
the state of exchange, the depression in Europe, and 
the rapid rise of industrial Japan, we can see that Eu- 
rope is to be forced to view with attentive eye the new 
factor in American success. 

That this is so, Americans who with impartial minds 
have lately studied European conditions know well 
enough. Early in 1923 the Department of Commerce 
in Washington sent abroad one of its skilled observers 
to note the state and prospects of European trade. On 
his return he said he had found the master producers 
in all countries looking with wry faces at the new fig- 
ures of American production and production costs. It 
was his conclusion, as it was theirs, that competition 
would drive Europe in self-defense to adopt prohibition. 
The only escape from it would be a miracle that would 
restore the saloon in America, and no imagination can 
suggest a thing more improbable. 

Even where a nation seems not to be directly involved 
in the market strugglings of the giants, it is effected by 
their conflicts; 1t feeds or clothes or in some way attends 
upon a giant, so that production efficiency is also the 
heart of its own welfare. 


AN BARCIER VIEW | 


The theory that the use of beer and light wines will 
diminish drunkenness and tend to wean men from the 
use of the stronger liquors is not a new one. Upon this 


1 This address, delivered by Rev. J. B. Dunn at the World’s Tem- 
perance Congress in Chicago in 1893, the year the Anti-Saloon League 
was organized, was entitled ““Are Beer and Light Wines to be Encouraged 
as Against the Stronger Distilled Liquors?” 


336 SELECTED ARTICLES 


theory it was that the early temperance reformers be- 
gun the movement, but they quickly found out that the 
drinking of beer and wine only led up to the use of the 
more fiery liquors. They found also that as the drinking 
of beer and wines increased, crime and pauperism and 
drunkenness increased, and that to do effective work 
their pledge must prohibit the use of fermented liquors, 
wines, and cider, as well as the distilled liquors. 

But a new generation has sprung up that know not 
the fathers, and the old exploded theory is revived, and 
pushed to the front by its advocates with an urgency and 
persistence that would be commendable in a better cause. 
Their plea is, that these beverages are harmless and 
wholesome, that their use will tend to wean men from 
the use of the stronger liquors; also, that in beer and 
wine drinking countries intemperance is comparatively 
rare. To prove the utter fallacy of such a plea is the 
object of this paper. 

1. As to the wholesomeness or harmlessness of beer. 
Take the following testimonies of authorities by no means 
prejudiced or fanatical. Medical science and experience 
have demonstrated beyond controversy that alcohol, in 
quantities conventionally deemed moderate, is inimical to 
the healthy human system, no mater whether it be in 
wine, beer, or whisky. Concerning beer and disease, the 
Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, a purely scientific rather 
than philanthropic journal, says: 

The constant use of beer is found to produce a species of 
degeneration of all the organism, profound and defective fatty 
deposits, diminished circulation, conditions of congestion and 


perversion of functional activities, local inflammations of both 
the liver and the kidneys are constantly present. 


Tipaddce 


In appearance the beer-drinker may be the picture of health, 
but in reality he is most incapable of resisting disease. 


The brewers, in their beer literature, undertake to 
show that the men in their employ demonstrate the 
wholesomeness of the beer, which they consume in large 


PROHIBITION 337 


quantities, by their healthy condition. Quite the contrary 
is the testimony of disinterested physicians of large ex- 
perience and observation. 

The distinguished Sir Astley Cooper declared, as the 
result of his experience in Guy’s Hospital, that “‘the 
beer-drinkers from the London breweries, though per- 
senting the appearance of rugged health, were the most 
incapable of all classes to resist disease, that trifling in- 
juries among them were liable to lead to the most serious 
consequences, and that so prone were they to succumb to 
disease that they would sometimes die from gangrene 
in wounds as trifling as the scratch of a pin.” And the 
celebrated Dr. Edmunds declares that the diseases of 
beer-drinkers are always of a dangerous character, and 
that such persons can never undergo the most trifling 
operation with the security of the temperate. 

This is disinterested and trustworthy testimony, and 
is corroborated by the most eminent physicians in Amer- 
ica. A few years ago the Toledo Blade published a 
series of interviews with leading physicians not known 
as specially interested in temperance, but physicians of 
large experience in dealing with beer-drinkers in their 
professional practice. These interviews, as a_ whole, 
present a very striking and powerful array of most con- 
vincing medical and scientific testimony against beer as a 
prolific source of disease, especially of dangerous kidney 
and liver trouble and of inebriety. The value of such 
testimony is enhanced by the fact that Toledo is essen- 
tially a beer-drinking city; that the German population 
is very large; that it has five of the largest and most 
extensive breweries in the country; and that there is 
probably more beer drunk there in proportion to the 
population than in any city of the United States. 

These remarkable medical interviews may be summed 
up in the words of one of the physicians: “Beer-drinkers 
are absolutely the most dangerous class of subjects that 
a surgeon can operate upon. Every surgeon dreads to 
have anything to do with them.” 


338 SELECTED VARTIGLES 


In a line with this testimony of physicians, is the dec- 
laration of the president of one of the largest life in- 
surance companies of the United States (Connecticut 
Mutual Life Insurance Company). Referring to beer, © 
this gentleman says: 

I protest against the notion so prevalent and so industriously 
urged that beer is harmless and a desirable substitute for the 
more concentrated liquors. What beer may be and what it may 
do in other countries and climates, I know not from observation. 
That in this country and climate its use is an evil only less 
than the use of whiskey, if less on the whole—that its effect is 
only longer delayed, not so immediately and obviously bad, its 
incidents not so repulsive, but destructive in the end,—I have 
seen abundant proof. 

He then gives numerous instances to confirm his state- 
ment. 

In a line with this statement is the action taken by 
the Northwestern Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, 
whose directors are wealthy men, residents of that city, 
where it is said the best lager-beer is brewed that is 
brewed in America, and who are in a position to know all 
about the healthfulness and harmlessness of lager-beer, 
as seen in its influence upon all employed in its manu- 
facture. Two years ago the Northwestern Life Insurance 
Company came to the conclusion that, for the protection 
of its own business, it could no longer grant a life in- 
surance policy to a lager-beer brewer, to his clerk, to his 
book-keeper, or to any man employed in a lager-beer 
brewery. Why? “Because,” say the directors, “our sta- 
tistics show that our business has been injured by the 
shortened lives of men who drink lager-beer.” And so 
generally have other life insurance companies discrimi- 
nated against beer-drinkers as extra hazardous risks, that 
a conference of brewers was recently held in a western 
city to make special arrangements for insuring their own 
lives and those of their beer-drinking companions. 

What an argument against indulging in beer. 

The Scientific American, which cannot be accused 
of fanaticism, says: 


PROHIBITION 339 


It is our observation that beer-drinking in this country pro- 
duces the very lowest kind of inebriety, closely allied to criminal 
insanity. The most dangerous class of ruffians in our large 
cities are beer-drinkers. 

The Rev. Dr. John Todd, of Pittsfield, Mass., though 
summoned by the License Party to testify on their be- 
half before the Massachusetts Legislative Committee of 
1867, made this confession concerning the beer-drinkers 
of Pittsfield: “I wish to say in regard to beer, that, while 
1 think it not as intoxicating as other drinks, it de- 
moralizes awfully.” And Oliver Dyer, whose remarkable 
Opportunities for observation in New York city adds 
weight to his testimony, says, in a magazine article: 


I wish to mention what seems to me to be a general fallacy, 
to wit, that lager-beer is an utterly harmless beverage, and that 
substitution of it for whiskey is a great gain. So far as my 
observation goes, I am satisfied that a German, with his brain 
soaked so stolidly in lager-beer, is as bad a brute as an Irishman 
with his brain set on fire with whiskey. The paroxysm of the 
whiskey-fired brain is more violent while it lasts, but the brutality 
of the beer-soaked brain is more stolid and enduring. 

The claim that beer is a healthy drink, even. beer- 
drinkers are coming to recognize as the greatest of de- 
lusions. “Do you know,” says the Honorable Theodore 
Roosevelt, holding up his glass, and looking through the 
amber-hued liquid, “that there is not a thought in a 
hogshead of beer; that there is not an idea in a whole 
brewery? I mean,” continued the Civil Service Reformer, 
“that nothing of merit was ever written under the in- 
spiration of lager-beer. It stupefies without invigorating, 
and its effect upon the brain is to stagnate thought.” 
And Mr. Roosevelt is not a temperance reformer. Yet 
brewers declare that the use of beer is an incentive to 
intellectual thought! 

Beer a harmless beverage! Judge White, of Pitts- 
burgh, says: 

From thirteen years’ experience in the criminal courts, I am 
thoroughly convinced that there are far more evils resulting 


from the use of beer than from whisky in this country. While 
the Chief of Police of Boston, in his report for 1872, asserts 


340 SELECTED ARTICLES 


upon the best of evidence, that many do get drunk upon beer, 
and not only that, but that “the ‘beer-drunk’ is the worst drunk 
OL all | 


Upon this point our enemies are by no means silent. 
“Tt is notorious,” says Bonfort’s Wine and Spirit Circular, 
“that our brewers seldom drink their own beer or the 
product of any other brewery. At the places which they 
frequent, and at which they take their meals, or at public 
picnics and summer-nights festivals, which are attended 
by brewers, it is generally noticed that these men drink 
anything but beer. If beer is healthy, why do our 
brewers refuse to drink beer?’ And the president of 
the National Distillers’ and Liquor-Dealers’ Protective 
Association, in arguing in favor of a uniform license 
fee, maintained that there was as much evil resulting 
from the beer traffic as from the traffic in distilled liquors. 
“Beer,” he said, “was drunk for its alcoholic effect. It 
was a slow, insidious intoxicant.”’ 

Listen next to the testimony of brewers themselves. 
One of the largest and wealthiest in New Jersey, who 
had amassed, it is said, through the business, a fortune 
of over half a million in less than twenty-five years, came 
to the conclusion that his business was wrong, and that 
to continue in it would simply be to outrage his con- 
science, so he abandoned it. He did not sell his busi- 
ness. He stopped it, and gave the following explanation 
of his conduct: “My action is not the result of religious 
excitement or conversion, but a conviction of what was 
my duty. I suppose that a good many Germans will take 
offence at what I have done; and I am very sorry. The 
brewers, too, will be offended; but, once convinced, as 
I am, that intemperance is the greatest curse of the world, 
I shall never again have anything to do with _beer- 
making.” 

Now for the confession of one who was for many 
years America’s greatest brewer. Shortly after the great 
fire in Chicago, at a meeting of a hundred or more 
gentlemen, former residents of the north side, where 


~~ 


PROHIBITION 341 


wide tracts of the beautiful lake shore had for years 
been ruined for homes or investment by the great 
breweries of that quarter, William Lill, a citizen of large 
wealth, whose thirty years’ experience as a brewer had 
placed him confessedly at the head of his guild in the 
northwest, was among the speakers. The question being 
upon the rebuilding of the breweries, Mr. Lill said that 
he should never build nor own another brewery. It was 
a business that demoralized both master and man. He 
had found it impossible to keep sober men on his premises. 
It was a manufactory of drunkards in constant operation ; 
and the curse began in the brewery itself, where every 
man was a beer-barrel in the morning and a barrel of 
beer at night. He would have no more of it. He would 
be content to make less money in some other way. 

At this point an old acquaintance in the audience 
called out, “Lill, what are we to do for that excellent 
ale of yours?” Mr. Lill answered, “Do without, and be 
the better for it.” 

What do the advocates of beer say to this revelation? 
It is no new discovery that the beer-saloon is one of 
the principal stations and ticket-offices on the Black 
Valley Railroad; but there is great value in this con- 
firmation of the fact from one whose experience covers 
thirty years in a great brewery establishment. 

Can that beverage, the manufacture of which de- 
moralizes both master and man, be either harmless or 
wholesome? 

II. Next, consider the plea that the use of beer and 
wine weans men from the use of the stronger liquors. 
Nothing can be more fallacious; the very opposite is 
the fact: their use but creates an appetite for the more 
fiery drinks. The issue is not what some papers writing 
in the interest of the brewers say, “beer versus brandy, 
wine versus whisky.” There is no such issue. It is, and 
has always been, beer and brandy, wine and whisky. 
They are not at all antagonists, They are, on the con- 


342 SELEGTEDTARAIGUES 


trary, partners. To change the figure, beer and light 
wines are “the devil’s kindling-wood for stronger drinks.” 
By creating and educating the appetite, they prepare the 
way for the consumption of distilled spirits, and tend 
most certainly to intemperance, crime and drunkenness. 
The drink-school is graded, beer-guzzling and wine- 
bibbing being the primary departments; passing from 
the use of beer to brandy and from wine to whisky is 
but the devil’s promotion from one school of vice to 
another. The claim that beer and wine displace the 
stronger liquors is utterly false. The alcohol in beer 
and wine is as dangerous and poisonous as in brandy 
and whisky. When Horace Greeley was at the head 
of the New York Tribune, a vigorous article from his 
pen appeared one morning in that paper, urging young 
men to avoid the tempter in whatever form he might 
appear, whether as punch or bitters, as sherry or Madeira, 
as hock or claret, as Heidsieck or champagne. The 
young men on the editorial staff, who knew more about 
such liquors than their chief, greeted Mr. Greeley up- 
roariously when he appeared at the office, and with in- 
finite glee pointed out to him that Heidsieck was not a 
different wine, but only a particular brand of champagne. 
As the laugh rang round the room, Mr. Greeley, who, as 
his opponents usually found, was quite able to hold his 
own, leaned with his shoulder against the wall, looking 
benignly at the laughing chorus, and when it became 
quiet he said: “Well, boys, I guess I’m the only man in 
this office that could have made that mistake”; and then 
added: “It don’t matter what you call him, champagne, 
or Heidsieck, or absinthe, he’s the same old devil.” 
Notwithstanding the use of distilled liquors has be- 
come fearfully prevalent in all beer-drinking and wine- 
growing countries, there still are found those posing as 
friends of temperance who advocate the licensing of 
places for the sale of “beer and wine only,” as a remedy 
for intemperance. Dr. Charles A. Story, of Chicago, in 


PROHIBITION 343 


his admirable treatise on “Alcohol, Its Nature and Ef- 
fects,” in illustrating the folly of such a course, tells 
the story of a woman who urged her husband to sell 
their old dog, or give him away, or kill him, as she 
could not bear the sight of a dog. One night he came 
home, and said: “Wife, I’ve sold that old dog!” “Have 
you? Good, good! I’m awful glad of it! What did you 
get for him?” “I got ten dollars.” “Did you? Good! 
I’m so glad you’ve sold him. Did you get your pay?” 
“Yes, but not in money.” “Not in money! What did 
you get for pay?” “I took it in pups at two dollars 
apiece!” 

So with a town that grants license for the sale of 
“beer and wine only,” they have sold one dog, but they 
have got five instead. 

Ill. Next, it is said that intemperance is compara- 
tively rare in beer-drinking and wine-producing coun- 
tries. This is fallacy number three. That such countries 
are cursed by intemperance and the long train of evils 
that follow in its wake is susceptible of the clearest 
proof. : 

What of Germany? Where, the editor of the Chi- 
cago Tribune says, “Drunkenness is so rare and so in- 
frequent that it may be said not too exist.” “No drunk- 
enness among the Germans,” says that editor. Let us 
See. 

Professor W. F. Warren, who resided seven years 
in Germany, in his testimony before the Legislative 
Committee of Massachusetts, in 1867, said of the stu- 
dents in the Universities of Berlin and Halle: “One- 
third of the students are once a week what you would 
call drunk. As regards the people, I can only say, that 
during the last five years drunken people have gone 
past my house, I suppose every evening, sometimes 
boisterously drunk, and sometimes reelingly drunk.” And 
the New York Independent, commenting upon the state- 
ment of an American lady resident in Berlin, that “there 


344 SHURCTED GAR DIGIICS 


is a great deal of drunkenness here as well as with us,” 
quotes from a medical periodical of high reputation, sig- 
nificant statistics which show that the extensive use of 
intoxicating drinks is doing Germany an immense harm, 
and to the effect that “in Germany no less than ten thou- 
sand people die of delirium tremens every year; that of 
the male prisoners in the country over 75 per cent are 
constant drinkers; of the female prisoners over 50 per 
cent indulge constantly.” 

In Scribner’s Monthly, an article appeared some 
years ago from the pen of William Wells, Esq., entitled 
“Low Life in Berlin,’ which is a striking comment 
upon the assumption that beer in Germany is a public 
blessing—a blessing (?) which should be still more 
widely extended in this country. In this article Mr. Wells 
says: 

If the school of social philosophers who argue so pleasantly 
about the influence of beer and wine in making a people tem- 
perate, will visit a few of the most notorious of the beer and 
wine cellars of the German metropolis, we will guarantee a 
change of front in their position in regard to this momentous 
question. The curse of Berlin is its ten thousand beer and wine 
cellars. Many of these are the retreats of the lowest species 
of vice and degradation, and the resorts of criminals in all stages 
of depravity. 

Of Belgium, pre-eminently a beer country, a recent 
writer in a California paper says: 

Belgium appears to be the headcentre of drunkenness and 
drunken poverty and misery. It is a little country, about twice 
the size of Los Angeles county, and has 5,500,000 people. The 
drink is beer, wine, and gin. In the year 1850 there were 53,007 
dram-shops; in 1870 there were 100,753; in 1875 there were 
125,000; and in 1888 there were 140,000, more than half as many 


as in the whole United States. One dram-shop for every forty- 
four of the population, old and young! 


In 1876 the writer was some time in Belgium. The 
workmen came on board ship to work every day loaded 
with private bottles of gin, in addition to the demijohns 
brought by their boss. In a gang of twenty-five to 
thirty-five men one was detailed about all the time to 


PROHIBITION 345 


serve out gin to the rest. Every day one or two men 
would be stretched out drunk and asleep somewhere, 
and there were a good many men more or less drunk 
always. When this was complained of the merchants 
said: Yes, we know it, it is always so, and we cannot 
help it. We have to give them gin right along or they 
would not work at all. 

Yet in the face of these facts, a Boston physician 
declares the Germans to be the greatest benefactors of 
our country by bringing to us their beer. 

How about the wine-producing countries? What of 
France? The distinguished American author, Cooper, 
wrote from Europe: “I came to Europe under the im- 
pression that there was more drunkenness among us 
than in any other country, England, perhaps, excepted. 
A residence of six months im Paris changed my views 
entirely. I have taken unbelievers with me into the 
streets, and have never failed to convince them in the 
course of an hour.” Horace Greeley, writing from Paris, 
says, “That wine will intoxicate—does intoxicate—that 
there are confirmed drunkards in Paris, and throughout 
France, is notorious and undeniable.” Honorable Caleb 
Foote, of Salem, Mass., writing from Paris to his son, 
Rev. H. M. Foote, of King’s Chapel, Boston, said: 
“Persons here, who have been for years familiar with 
Paris, tell me there is a vast amount of drunkenness 
here, and they have seen enough to make them deny 
in toto the theory that the people of wine-producing 
countries are sober.” ‘The late Rev. Dr. E. N. Kirk, of 
Boston, who was for some time pastor of the American 
Chapel, Paris, says: “I never saw such systematic drunk- 
enness as I saw in France. The French go about it as 
a business. I never saw so many women drunk.” Robert 
Tomes, American Consul at Rheims, in his book, “The 
Champagne Country,’ says: “I have never beheld a 
coarser scene of debauch than was openly exhibited at 
Rheims night after night, during the carnival, at the 


346 SELECTED ARTICLES 


theater, in the cafés, and in the streets, where both sexes, 
whether disguised or not, put no restraint upon their 
tongues, gestures, or conduct. A rabid thirst for cham- 
pagne, hot punch, and other strong drinks prevailed, and 
everyone seemed eager to reach intoxication as the 
summum bonum. Success crowned their efforts, and uni- 
versal drunkenness prevailed.” 

France a temperance country! The claim is pre- 
posterous. 

But it may be said, this is the testimony of Ameri- 
cans who know little about it. Well, let us hear the 
testimony of some of France’s near neighbors, the 
English. John Plummer, an Englishman, writing from 
Paris to an English paper, says: “During the few weeks 
preceding Lent, Paris presents a picture of drunkenness 
almost unparalleled. The infamous orgies of which 
many of the cafés and cabarets are then the scene, are 
of an almost incredible nature. ... It is lust and drunk- 
enness in their foulest aspect.”” While Charles Dickens 
says: “The wine-shops of France breed, in a physical 
atmosphere of malaria, and a moral pestilence of envy 
and vengeance, the men of crime and revolution.” 

But it may be said the Englishman is_ prejudiced. 
Well, what of the Frenchman? King Louis Philippe 
told Mr. E. C. Delavan that “wine was the curse of 
France,” that he wished every grape-vine was destroyed. 
And the Count de Montalembert said, in the National 
Assembly of France, ““Where there is a wine-shop, there 
are elements of disease and the frightful source of all 
that is at enmity with the interests of the workman.” 

Another prominent Frenchman, M. Jules Simon, writ- 
ing in the de Travail, describes the drunken scenes in 
the cabarets of France among men as disgusting. And 
of women he says: “Even in France there are towns 
where women rival men in habits of intoxication. At 
Lille, at Rouen, there are some women so saturated with 
it that their infants refuse to take the breast of a sober 
woman,” 


PROHIBITION 347 


As overwhelming is the testimony of French editors. 
A French magazine, called The Work-a-Day World of 
France, says: “Drunkenness is the beginning and end 
of life in the great French industrial centers, There 
are manufacturing towns (Lille, for instance) where the 
women have followed the example of the men, and have 
added drunkenness to their other vices. It is estimated 
that at Lille twenty-five out of every one hundred men, 
and twelve out of every one hundred women, are con- 
firmed drunkards.’ 

The Le Petit Journal of. Paris, in describing the 
“Drink Scourge,” of France, says: “The money-box of 
the liquor-seller swallows up, sou by sou, the wages that 
formerly, in the form of silver pieces, were hidden away 
in some corner of the clothes-press, to be brought out 
when enough was accumulated to buy a little piece of 
ground. In the villages the women are reduced, like 
the wives of workmen in the towns, to haunt the doors 
of the drink-shop in order to rescue the bread of their 
children from the alcoholic gulf.” In the same strain 
the Constitutional, a Paris paper, has an editorial. It 
says: “It is unanimously admitted that the habit of 
drunkenness has increased in France year by year since 
the beginning of the century. ... The tavern is a school 
of vice. It is from there that nearly all criminals emerge, 
and it is there that the great army of thieves and male- 
factors find recruits. The French race is deteriorating. 
Men begin with wine; soon the palate is pallid, and asks 
for stronger excitement. Alcohol is taken. In forty 
years the consumption of alcohol has tripled in France.” 
Of late years the drinking habit has increased so largely 
that statesmen and publicists are appalled by the prob- 
lem which is presented thereby. Alcohol insanity has 
more than doubled in fifteen years. 

As with France, so with Switzerland, another noted 
wine-growing country. The testimony is all one way. 
Take the testimony of one who spent several years 
among the cantons. In a letter to Dr. J. G. Holland, 


348 SELECTED PARTICLES 


he says: “I have seen more drunkenness here than in 
any other country I have visited, not even excepting 
England and the United States.” Dr. Holland himself, 
writing from Switzerland, says: “Cheap wine is not the 
cure for intemperance. The people here are as intem- 
perate as in America.” Rodolph Rey, in a book entitled 
Geneves, et Les Rives der Leman, says: “Drunkenness 
is the bleeding (saignant) plague (or wound) of the 
Vaudois. This vice makes cruel ravages.” Again, 
‘“Drunkenness is the curse of the country.” Henry G. 
Carey, Esq., Professor of Music, says that at a musical 
festival which he attended in Switzerland, three or four 
hundred musicians being present, “a large proportion 
of them were drunk, a great many of them dead drunk, 
quite a number of them fighting drunk, and more of them 
reelingly drunk.” 

Yet, in view of such testimony there are those who 
still prate about the temperance and sobriety of wine- 
growing countries, and urge the cultivation of the grape 
in our country for the manufacture of wine in the in- 
terests of temperance. But the experiment in California 
proves the contrary. Already she has achieved notoriety 
as a wine-making state, and her wines are found in 
almost every market, and the same sad results as wit- 
nessed in France ana Switzerland are to be seen here, 
and strikingly confirms our assertion that the theory of 
banishing intemperance by the general use of wine is 
a delusion and a snare. Rev. Dr. Stone, who went from 
the Park St. Church, Boston, to San Francisco, with the 
strong hope that the manufacture of native wines and 
their introduction into general use would crowd out the 
gross strong liquors and diminish intemperance, very 
soon was forced to say. “J am now fully convinced that 
this hope was groundless and delusive.” He also de- 
clared that in the wine-growing districts intemperance 
was on the increase, extending even to the youth of both 
sexes, and added: “There is no way but to take ground 


PROHIBITION 349 


against the production of grapes for all such manufac- 
ture. This touches a very large and growing pecuniary 
interest, and will provoke strenuous opposition; but we 
must save this state, if it can be done, from such invest- 
ment of capital and labor, and from the unavoidable re- 
sult of drunkenness, profligacy, and crime.” 

Rev. Dr. Patterson, of San Francisco, after showing 
that, in the wine-producing districts of Europe, the 
people soon pass from the use of wine to distilled spirits, 
says: “The same results are apparent in the wine-grow- 
ing districts of California. In one wine-growing village 
of eight hundred inhabitants there are nine saloons. 
There is more brandy-drinking and drunkenness of 
young men upon brandy in our wine-growing districts 
than in San Francisco. The notion of substituting wine 
for brandy or whisky is all a delusion.” 

The editor of the Rescue, a California paper, writes: 
“Wine-making as an element of wealth, has proved a 
delusion and a snare—it has paved the way to poverty 
and drunkenness only.” And the editor of the Pacific, 
in an article on native wines, says: “Nearly the whole 
crop is turned into wine. The effect of this wine-making 
is beginning to tell disastrously on large numbers of 
those engaged in it. . . . Wine is not strong enough, 
and brandy is substituted, and the man becomes a drunk- 
ard. This wine-making is becoming the very curse of 
California.” 

In addition to these experiments of other countries, 
there is one more remarkable experiment to which we 
would call attention in the hope of dispelling the delusive 
theory of substituting beer and wine for the stronger 
drinks, in the interest of temperance. I refer to that 
very sad mistake made by the Parliament of Great Brit- 
ain in 1830, when it passed “An Act to permit the 
general sale of beer and cider by retail in England.” By 
this act any householder could, on giving bonds and 
sureties, and paying two guineas, obtain a license to 


350 SELECTED RANDLE S 


sell cider. Then, as now, it was claimed that this would 
provide for all a more wholesome beverage, that it 
would diminish drunkenness, and greatly lessen the con- 
sumption of stronger alcoholic liquors. Never was there, 
however, a greater miscalculation. Within a fortnight 
of its enactment, Sidney Smith, who had urged the pas- 
sage of the measure, said: “The new Beer Bill has begun 
its operations. Everybody 1s drunk. Those who are not 
singing are sprawling. ‘The sovereign people are in a 
beastly state!’ And within a short time abundant and 
conclusive evidence was found going to show that many, 
very many who were previously sober and industrious 
were made drunkards. Many women had become tip- 
plers, and the beer-houses, as might have been expected, 
were but nurseries of drunkenness, shameless prostitu- 
tion, and crime, and in a-few years, the very men who, 
from good motives, but with mistaken judgment, advo- 
cated and voted for the measure, took steps to secure 
its repeal, which they finally accomplished, but not until 
a vast injury, from which the English nation has not 
yet recovered, had been done. 

If the friends of temperance would save this nation 
from repeating such consummate, suicidal folly, they 
must inaugurate a more definite and more effective cru- 
sade against beer and wine manufacture. Already these 
interests have grown to colossal proportions. 

Consider the large and increased proportions which 
wine-making assumes in this country. In 1840 the con- 
sumption of wines in the United States was 4,873,096 
gallons; in 1890, 28,956,981 gallons. During the latter 
year (1890) the capital invested in vineyards and wine- 
cellars in the United States amounted to over $155,000,- 
000, while some four hundred thousand acres were 
planted in vineyards, an increase in ten years of some 
two hundred thousand acres. California alone has one 
hundred and fifty thousand acres in vineyards and 
$78,000,000 invested in wine-making. 


PROHIBITION 351 


The magnitude of the work and the obstacles the 
friends of temperance have to overcome will be better 
understood by a glance at the marvellous increase of 
late years in the consumption of beer and the power of 
the brewers. In 1840 the consumption of malt liquors 
was, in gallons, 23,310,843; fifty years afterwards, in 
1890, the consumption was 855,792,335 gallons. 

As a result of this growth of the beer interest, brew- 
ers who a quarter of a century ago were small capitalists, 
are now millionaires, some of them many times million- 
aires. This financial success has made them arrogant 
and autocratic. This is very noticeable in the realm of 
politics. Here they have for some time been able to 
exert a controlling influence—altogether disproportionate 
to their numbers—in Federal, state, and municipal leg- 
islation. This has been, and continues to be possible, 
because, first, of their unity of purpose and action, sub- 
ordinating everything to the beer interest; and second, 
by their arbitrary and dictatorial control of the beer- 
saloons of the large cities, of which they are for the 
most part the real capitalists and owners. These beer- 
saloons are used for the brewers as so many political 
club-houses, to make or unmake the political fortunes 
of candidates and legislators who may favor or oppose 
the beer traffic. They maintain a “literary bureau,” to 
disseminate publications advocating moderate drinking ; 
extolling the benefits sanitary and otherwise of beer; and 
to ply legislators, the press, and the public with false 
and misleading statements. 

At the annual convention of the Beer Brewers’ As- 
sociation, held in Boston, May, 1892, it was reported 
that for this work they had a balance in the treasury 
of $52,188.91. With this amount a good many beer 
documents can be printed and circulated. 

These arrogant and autocratic brewers also teach in- 
subordination to law wherever prohibition or any form 
of really stringent anti-liquor legislation is enacted. They 


352 SELECTED ARTICLES 


combine to defend illegal liquor-sellers in court, and do 
all in their power to thwart and defy restrictive law. The 
Haddock murder in lowa is a striking illustration of 
this spirit of lawlessness and violence against legal re- 
straints. As in Chicago, the saloons are the headquarters 
of conspirators and anarchists. 

The work before the friends of temperance is to 
arrest and destroy this beer domination. It is the most 
formidable single factor to be overcome in the contest 
for the utter annihilation of the liquor traffic, and as 
it is thus powerful because of a lack of enlightened public 
conscience on the fallacy of its claims, the first and in- 
dispensable thing is to disseminate light on the nature 
of beer, and the enormous evils resulting from beer- 
drinking to the public health and morals. The public 
must be shown that both brewery and distillery are evil, 
and both are harmful, because of the nature and the 
effects of the alcohol contained in the beverages manu- 
factured in each. And inasmuch as it is the beer-saloon, 
especially the high-license and gilded beer-saloon, which 
is the pathway of moral ruin to countless victims, young 
and old, of both sexes, in all our large cities, and nine- 
tenths of the drunkards of today commenced on _ beer 
and light wines, if there is to be any discrimination in 
law, between intoxicants, in the name of outraged law 
and suffering humanity, place the heavier burden upon 
the brewery than the distillery. But, in the name of God, 
let us take no rest, and give the foe no rest, until both 
are swept from the land by constitutional prohibition, 
Federal and state. 


PROHIBITION AND CRIME? 


Very often it is asserted, either in the newspapers or 
in the propaganda of the liquor interests, that the Vol- 


1 Written especially for this volume by James McIntosh, President Mc- 
Intosh Engine Company, Designer of the Ferro Marine Engine and In- 
ventor of the McIntosh Marine Engine, 2964 Corydon Rd., Cleveland 
Heights, Ohio. 


PROHIBITION 353 


stead Act is so drastic and unreasonable in prohibiting 
the manufacture and sale of any liquor that contains 
more than % of 1 per cent of alcohol that a considerable 
portion of the American people, who are otherwise good 
citizens but who see no harm in the use of liquor, will 
not obey the law but will deliberately and persistently 
violate it, and that this is a condition which has created 
disrespect for all law, increased the amount of crime, 
and is the reason, or the chief reason, why this country 
now has a much larger percentage of crime than most 
of the other advanced nations. The remedy, it is as- 
serted, is to modify the Volstead Act so as to permit the 
manufacture and sale of beer, which made up more than 
90 per cent of the liquor traffic before the Volstead law 
was adopted. 

Of course nobody expects either the average news- 
paper or any system of propaganda to adhere strictly 
to the truth, but the above statement is so far from the 
truth and is so often repeated that the Handbook on 
Prohibition would not be complete without an answer 
which refuted it by stating the true causes for the crime 
conditions in this country. 

The Volstead Act made certain acts crimes which 
were not crimes before it was enacted, at least they were 
not crimes in the fifteen states which had not adopted 
prohibition by state action. Furthermore, it seems to be 
a trait of human nature that many people will desire to 
get anything that is difficult to obtain, and will have a 
feeling that whatever they can get by some mysterious 
connection or secret influence puts them on a plane of 
distinction or superiority and is a matter for them to 
boast about. To this extent the Volstead law has made 
more crime, or, more accurately speaking, has made new 
crime. But the claim that this law has produced dis- 
respect for all law and is responsible for there being in 
this country a greater percentage of crime, meaning 
thereby murders, burglaries, robberies, etc., than there is 
in Great Britain, for example, is so utterly false as to be 


354. SELECTED ARTICLES 


ludicrous and grotesque. If it were even an approxi- 
mation of the truth there would have been a marked 
increase in crime beginning with the first year the Vol- 
stead law was in effect, but a chart I have made, plotted 
to show separately the sum total of all the major and 
minor crimes committed in this country each year since 
the beginning of this century and compiled from all the 
reliable crime statistics available, fails to show any in- 
crease in the major crimes in the year 1920, but does 
show at that point a marked decrease in the minor 
crimes. If this often repeated claim were the honest 
truth, then certainly there would have been, before the 
Volstead law went into effect, much more crime in the 
thirty-three states that had adopted prohibition by state 
action than there was then in the fifteen states that were 
still wet, but the statistics show that the opposite was 
the case. If there were any truth in this assertion, then 
the persons most zealously demanding the repeal of the 
Prohibition Amendment and the Volstead Act would be 
the students and scholars who have made criminology 
their specialty as well as the judges of criminal courts, the 
public prosecutors, the police officers, the probation of- 
ficers, the prison wardens, and others who have to deal 
with the criminal class, but here again the opposite is the 
case. And why all this anxiety about crime conditions 
by the very people who have done most to create and 
develop crime, and who have continually and persistently 
violated’ the laws themselves, namely the brewers and 
the saloonkeepers. 

If the Volstead Act is not the cause of the excess of 
crime in this country, then what is the cause? Years 
before the Volstead law was enacted we had a higher 
percentage of crime than did Great Britain. This was 
due to causes that were many and complicated, but there 
are one chief reason and three minor reasons which ought 
to be discussed briefly. The minor reasons are: (1) 
There is in this country a publicity favorable to the 


PROHIBITION 355 


development of crime. (2) There is a feeling in this coun- 
try that crime may be committed with impunity. (3) 
The development of the automobile. The chief reason 
is the loss of American ideals that has taken place since 
about the time of the Civil War. 

Everybody knows that most newspapers, the lower 
grade of moving pictures, and the poorer and cheaper 
novels and stories usually play up crime, giving details 
of actions and motives, often picturing as heroes the 
most brutal and disgusting criminals. These things take 
a strong hold on immature and subnormal minds. This 
does considerable to increase and develop crime In 
the Cleveland Plain Dealer for August 31, 1924, I said 
in a letter printed on the editorial page, ‘““The front page 
is no place to review the details of crime. ... If the 
press would expose graft and rottenness it would be 
better employed than by reviewing the details of crime.” 
Of course there is nothing new in this point. Indeed, 
within the past week this thought has been publicly 
uttered in a way that has come to my attention five dif- 
ferent times in widely separated parts of the country. 
For instance, Frederick N. Withey of New York city 
was reported to have told the Grain Dealers’ National 
Association at its annual meeting in Cincinnati on Sep- 
tember 23, 1924, that, ‘““Newspapers that print sensa- 
tional romances woven around the exploits of ‘sheik’ rob- 
bers and bobbed haired ‘flapper’ bandits are to blame for 
the increase in crime.” Four days later the Retail Mer- 
chants’ Bureau of the Murphysboro, Illinois, Chamber of 
Commerce was reported to have passed a resolution call- 
ing on the newspapers “To give less attention to crime 
and to devote more space to constructive news.” 

Another minor reason for the excess of crime in 
this country is the feeling that crime may be committed 
with impunity, or at least with a good chance of im- 
punity. Some people are prone to criticise the criminal 
courts, claiming that they are too lenient and that len- 
iency breeds crime, but there was more crime in Great 


356 SELECTED ARTICLES 


Britain when people were hanged for robbery than there 
is today. Severity is not the remedy. Others see in the 
delay in the bringing cases to trial and in hearing of 
appeals a cause of this feeling. Others, still, see in the 
failure of the authorities to apprehend a large part of 
the murderers and burglars a stimulus to commit these 
crimes. Whatever the cause of this feeling, it cannot 
be denied that such a feeling exists, and that it is one 
of the lesser reasons for the excess of crime in this 
country. 

The development of the automobile has not only 
facilitated a quick get-away, which is very necessary in 
many crimes such as bank and pay-roll robberies, but it 
has also made the poor more envious of the rich and 
the middle class, for it flouts before them every day the 
pleasures and conveniences they cannot enjoy. To many 
of the younger criminals—and most of the crime is com- 
mitted by boys and young men—this is undoubtedly a 
stimulus to commit crime. 

The chief cause of the high percentage of crime in 
this country is the loss of American ideals. During the 
last fifty years religion has slowly but surely lost much 
of its hold on the American people, especially those who 
live in the cities. As this has taken place there has de- 
veloped a cold selfishness, an utter disregard of the wel- 
fare of other people, and a scheming dishonesty. Dur- 
ing these fifty years there has grown up a feeling, now 
quite general among the richer and better educated peo- 
ple, that money is the key to everything worthwhile in 
this world, that once having money nobody is asked 
how he obtained it, that money gives leisure, the luxuries 
of life, power, prominence, and social standing, and that 
the ideals taught by the churches and the schools are 
obsolete, impracticable, and impossible for one who would 
seek financial or business success in the strenuous life 
of today. This feeling has developed as the natural con- 
sequence of the events and the conditions in this coun- 
try. It is the inevitable result of those conspicuous and 


OE a —— 


PROHIBITION 357 


spectacular examples of people who have been extremely 
successful violators of the law, who have grown enor- 
mously rich because of violating the law, and who have 
wielded great power and become highly respected because 
of their wealth. 

And what are some of these conspicuous and spec- 
tacular examples of crime that have been so highly re- 
warded and applauded? There have been many cases 
of persons who have grown rich, some of them fabu- 
lously rich, as the direct result of continually conducting 
their business activities in plain and intentional violation 
of the law. The laws against trusts and monopolies, 
against profiteering and price fixing, against rebates and 
unfair competition, against bucketing and stock manipu- 
lation, against adulteration and short measure, and scores 
of similar laws, especially those dealing with taxation, 
have been often and persistently violated by men of great 
wealth and high standing. Many of these men have 
been prominent church members and for that very reason 
their criminal careers have done greater harm by under- 
mining the power for good that was formerly exer- 
cised by the church. There have been cases where a 
rich and respected man has deliberately wrecked a rail- 
road or some other large business or industrial under- 
taking so that he might despoil his associates in business 
further to enrich himself. There have been cases of cor- 
porations organized, not for the purpose of going into 
business, but created simply for the purpose of selling 
their stock to unsuspecting investors who could be robbed. 
There was a case, about fifty years ago, of a lawyer em- 
ployed in one of the larger cities of the eastern part of 
the country by a group of people who had bought stock 
in a silver mine in a western state. He was sent to 
the west to make a first hand investigation when a rumor 
had spread among the stockholders that the mine was 
worthless and that the stockholders were liable to an 
assessment. Upon his return he reported that the mine 
was practically worthless and that the stockholders were 


358 SELECTED. ARTICLES 


liable to an assessment that was soon to be made. Of 
course the stockholders immediately disposed of their 
holdings for little or nothing. Shortly afterward it de- 
veloped that the mine was a rich and valuable property 
and that the lawyer who had made the investigation had 
in the meantime become the owner of most of the stock 
that had been so hastily sold. There have been many 
such cases where fiduciary relations have been violated, 
and the offender has lived to enjoy the fruits of his 
treachery and the respect of the community. 

Of course there is nothing at all either original or 
new about these facts or about the effects they have in 
destroying our civic and religious ideals. Witness the 
following statement, written almost twenty years ago, 
by Dr. Edward A. Ross, professor of sociology at the 
University of Wisconsin: 


The conspicuously successful violator of the rules of the 
game robs us of that which is more precious than gold. The 
enterprises that have succeeded by trampling on the laws have 
done worse than extort money from us. After all, the monopo- 
list as such hurts us no more than a drouth, a May frost, the 
boll weevil, or the chinch bug; and these are not calamities of 
the first rank, for, though they lessen our comfort, they do not 
leave us less civilized. But as a successful law breaker, the 
monopolist takes from us more than money: he takes away our 
ideals, leaving us more ape and less man. For twenty years 
the writer has watched the effect upon college young men of the 
conspicuous triumph of the first great commercial pirate—the 
oil trust—over able competitors, common carriers, oil producers, 
public prosecutors, attorneys general, courts, legislatures, news- 
papers, and leaders of opinion. Many left college for the battle 
of life with the conviction that the ideals of success held out 
by their instructors were unpractical. “The preachers and pro- 
fessors and commencement speakers are old fogies,” says one. 
“This isn’t the kind of world they think it is. They are fussy 
old maids, not strong men.” “With all these fine principles,” 
says another, “you’d be a dead one from the start. You'd 
never get into the game at all.” “Money’s the thing! With 
money you're IT, no matter who kicks,” says a third. “I’m 
going to climb into the band wagon, not hoot as it goes by.” 
So, for several college generations, one could mark in the ebb 
of generous ideals and the mounting of a precocious cynicism 
the working of the virus. If such was the impression of trium- 


1Sin and Society: An Analysis of Latter-Day Iniquity. Houghton Mif- 
flin Co. 1907. p. 152-4. 


PROHIBITION 359 


phant lawlessness upon young men whose horizon had been 
widened by academic culture, what must it have been upon the 
multitudes of callow youth that from the school-boy desk go 
ill-furnished forth into active life? The founder of the oil 
trust may give us back our money, but not if he send among 
us a hundred Wesleys can he give us back the lost ideals. 

It would be an easy matter to quote from the utter- 
ances of our most honest and able scholars and states- 
men a dozen or two dozen similar statements. The speech 
of William Jennings Bryan entitled Thou Shalt Not Steal 
and some of the later messages of President Roosevelt, 
are along this line. 

Though the moral and ethical standards of politics 
are higher than those of big business, still the history 
of American politics for the past fifty years reeks with 
the stench of corruption.t Sixty years ago Abraham 
Lincoln declared this to be a “government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people.” Fifty years after 
this memorable phrase was first uttered Professor 
Charles Zueblin of the University of Chicago in a public 
lecture declared that “This is a government of the people, 
by the courts, for the corporations.’ From Credit 
Mobilier to the Teapot Dome it has been a continuous 
story. Even more corrupt than the national government 
have been the state governments. Such things as the 
fifty year franchise law that was bought through the 
Ohio legislature thirty years ago have not been rare, but 
are the high spots in a continuous course of crime against 
the states by the invisible government that has shown 
its power by getting some of those who voted for this 
famous steal appointed to high governmental offices. But 
the worst and the rottenest of our governmental corrup- 
tion has been in the cities, particularly in the larger cities, 
although here the conditions have improved somewhat in 
recent years. Tweed, the monarch of all municipal 
thieves, was crude in the operations by which he stole 
over $100,000,000 from the city of New York. The 


1 For details see Alfred B. Cruikshank’s Popular Misgovernment in the 
United States, particularly chapters 13 and 14. 


360 SELECTED ARTICLES 


modern municipal thief is much more skillful. While 
there are no such striking cases today as the “Forty 
Thieves” or the “Crooked Thirteen” still many cities 
now have one or more councilmen who have served for 
many years in the municipal legislature and who have 
grown “rich on forty pounds a year.’”’ There have been 
a great many cases where tremendously valuable munici- 
pal franchises have been bought by corrupt public service 
corporations which have bribed a majority of the mem- 
bers of a city council, so that most of our larger cities 
now have their traditions and their living examples of 
successful crime. Many a man is a millionaire today be- 
cause some years ago he, or his father, committed these 
frightful crimes of which President Roosevelt said on 
December 7, 1903 in a message to Congress: 


There can be no crime more serious than bribery. Other 
offenses violate one law while corruption strikes at the founda- 
tion of all law. Under our form of government all authority 
is vested in the people and by them delegated to those who 
represent them in official capacity. There can be no offense 
heavier than that of him in whom such a sacred trust has been 
reposed, who sells it for his own gain and enrichment; and no 
iess heavy is the offense of the bribe giver. He is worse than 
the thief, for the thief robs the individual, while the corrupt 
official plunders an entire city or state. He is as wicked as the 
murderer, for the murderer may only take one life against the 
law, while the corrupt official and the man who corrupts the 
official alike aim at the assassination of the commonwealth it- 
self. Government of the people, by the people, for the people 
will perish from the face of the earth if bribery is tolerated. The 
givers and takers of bribes stand on an evil pre-eminence of 
infamy. 


Though the ethical standards in education are still 
higher than those of politics, yet high educational posi- 
tions, both in public education and in privately endowed 
schools and colleges, have been given to men and women 
totally incompetent to fill them, either because they were 
related to some influential politician or rich magnate, or 
because they were the loyal supporters of some corrupt 
corporate enterprise. Indeed, there was a case of a 
privately endowed university whose trustees were domi- 


PROHIBITION 261 


nated by one of their own number who was a very rich 
man and an officer in one of the great monopolies whose 
methods have often been the subject of criticism. About 
thirty years ago this dominating trustee selected for the 
presidency of this university an obscure clergyman who 
was not a well-educated man, who was not even a col- 
lege graduate, whose education had been obtained by at- 
tending, for the larger part of one year, one of the 
smaller eastern colleges, but of whose loyalty to him and 
his business methods the dominating trustee had no doubt. 
For almost thirty years this modern Dionysius reigned 
as the tyrant of Syracuse, maintaining an institution with 
low standards of scholarship and fine athletic teams, 
loudly condemning on the spot any student whom he 
happened to see smoking on the campus or on the streets 
and publicly condoning and supporting the great monop- 
olies in their violation of the anti-trust laws. When 
President Roosevelt made his attack on the criminal 
practices of trusts and monopolies, then this Dionysius, 
dignified by the position he held, was prompt and loud 
in defending the monopoly from whose officer he had 
obtained his position, to the amazement and disgust of 
all honest educators. And after the death of his master, 
he ruled the board of trustees, referring to them as “my 
board of trustees’ and boasting that at every meeting 
he alone made every motion that was offered in that 
body and that he had dropped certain trustees whose 
course did not please him. 

These are the things that have robbed the American 
people of the pure and lofty ideals they inherited from 
the Puritan and the Cavalier, and have created and de- 
veloped the present spirit of cold Machiavellianism that 
rules business and politics and even permeates the 
schools, colleges, and churches of this country today. 
This theft of our ideals by men who have been indus- 
trial, political, or educational leaders is the chief reason 
why so many of our young men, some of the men of 
subnormal minds, others unfortunate in other respects, 


362 SELECTED ARTICLES 


have taken up a life of crime as an easy way to get 
money, for money, they have been taught by the examples 
and careers of the leaders of action, is the key to every- 
thing worthwhile in this world. This condition existed 
long before the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, so 
that the Volstead Act had nothing at all to do with it, 
and it will not be remedied by a return to the pre-Vol- 
stead conditions when the American people consumed 
annually more than two billion gallons of beer, and the 
organized brewers owned most of the saloons and made 
and unmade statesmen at will. 

Welcome the day when all men shall wear the armour 
of truth and in the strength of manhood overcome the 
temptation to steal that mars and dwarfs and tells the 
story of the weakness of men recognized as leaders, as 
well as the unfortunate petty thief. Then, indeed, shall 
character be rated the standard of eminence and moral 
worth held higher than the possession of great wealth. 
Then shall the young, the poor, the subnormal, the de- 
fective, and the unfortunate have before them as the men 
they seek to emulate worthy examples of leaders inspired 
by the pure and lofty ideals formerly cherished by all 
great Americans. 


DR PETE Gr Eas 


The most sinister thing about beer is its apparent 
harmlessness—Dr. Edwin F. Bowers. American Maga- 
zine. 81:54. May, 1910. 


Young people usually begin to drink with beer or 
wine.—Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. Scientific Temperance 
Journal, 32:13. Spring, 1923. 


Modern scientific research has shown that, contrary 
to general belief, beer is proportionately much more 
noxious than are wines or liquors——Dr. Edwin F. 
Bowers. American Magazine. 81:54. May, 1916. 


a — cm i a 


Se Oe ee ee ee ee 


PROHIBITION 363 


here is a close negative correlation between the 
enactment of the prohibition law and the commitments 
to prison, reformatory, and jails—John L. Gillen. Pro- 
ceedings of the 1921 Conference of Social Work. p. 136. 


Since prohibition the charitable organizations of our 
six largest cities have reduced the number of their cases 
of family destitution to an average of 85 per cent of 
the former figures —W/uting Williams. Collier's Weekly. 
Ve Ve AUSUSE IT) 1022. 


No great evil was ever yet subdued by license. Pro- 
hibition absolute by law is the only remedy sanctioned 
by experience and common sense.—Senator Henry W. 
Blair. North American Review. 138:52. January, 1884. 


Prohibition, in itself, can hurt no one but the egotist 
or self-centered who accumulated hordes of this world’s 
goods by the manufacture or sale of alcohol—Dr. D. 
Nathan, Medical Record. 98:186. July 31, 1920. 


The elimination of the liquor traffic has greatly re- 
duced the number of arrests (in Indiana) not only for 
drunkenness but also for petty crimes——John A. Brown. 
Proceedings of the 1921t Conference of Social Work. 


pee ad. 


Almost invariably the drink habit is inaugurated 
through the use of beer. Scientific men and sociologists 
in general fail to agree with brewers in their conten- 
tion that beer drives out stronger liquors.—Dr. Edwin 
F, Bowers. American Magazine. 81:55. May, 19106. 


It will take some years to dampen the taste of a man 
for beer, wine, or spirit, but the alcoholic has no more 
right to indulge such taste than the morphine-eater has 
to indulge his—Dr. D. Nathan. Medical Record. 98: 186. 
July 31, 1920. 


364. SELECTED ARTICLES 


The United States Government reported a greater 
national consumption of alcohol [before the adoption of 
prohibition] through the beer medium than through the 
whisky medium.—lW/ilson and Pickett. The Case for Pro- 
hibition. p. 62. 


Personal liberty ends where public injury begins. 
There is a higher personal liberty, and that is civil lib- 
erty. The liquor traffic exists under a license. It has 
no inherent rights—Wulliam H. Anderson. Forum. 62: 


73. July, 1919. 


Prohibition enables workmen to make better use of 
their leisure hours, and thus strengthens the moral argu- 
ment in favor of shorter hours. Prohibition gives to 
labor better homes, more comfort for wives, better care 
of children, and more time and clearer brains for the 
study of the duties of citizenship—Wiulliam J. Bryan. 
Locomotive Engineers’ Journal. 57:568. November, 1923. 


It is nonsense to say that this government cannot 
enforce the Volstead Act if it wants to do so. Nothing 
within reason is beyond the power of this government. 
... The government is not using its power. It is per- 
mitting the abuse of permits. This conclusion cannot 
be escaped.—Gifford Pinchot. Hearst’s International. 


ZOPTAS) April 1024. 


Can men become drunk on wine and beer? Empires 
fell because of drunken debauchery before such a thing 
as a still had existed in the world. No ancient Egyptian 
was ever drunk except on wine or beer. Alexander 
died drunk but he never heard of whisky. The sodden 
debauchery of Nero’s feasts was caused by the wine and 
beer consumed.—Wilson and Pickett. The Case for Pro- 
hibition. p. Of, 


At every point where a test has been made the same 
amazing reduction in the number of deaths, institutional 


PROHIBITION 365 


commitments, and hospital admissions of alcoholics is 
revealed ; and I have been recently told by Dr. Abraham 
Myerson and Dr. A. W. Stearns, formerly of our psycho- 
pathic hospital staff, both men of wide experience, that 
the alcoholic forms of insanity are actually disappearing 
from the intake of the hospital —_Wulliam H. Pear. Pro- 
ceedings of the 1921 Conference of Social Work. p. 242. 


Take the Prohibition Unit of the Internal Revenue 
Department out of politics tomorrow, place it under 
civil service, or empower the Federal Prohibition Com- 
missioner to make his own regulations, hire and fire 
his own subordinates, provide him with the right kind 
of men, and in less than six months the United States 
will be almost bone-dry and respect for law reestab- 
lished.—Jack O’Donnell. Collier's Weekly. 73:6. Janu- 
ary 20, 1924. 


After the Prohibition law went into effect I especially 
enquired if the addicts had been hitherto accustomed to 
alcoholic drinks. 

“Contrary to the general impression, they have al- 
most invariably replied in the negative, that there was 
no connection apparently between the difficulty in get- 
ting alcoholic drinks, and the taking of narcotic drugs. 
—William McAdoo, Chief City Magistrate, New York 
City. Saturday Evening Post. March 21, 1922. 


Dr. Ernest S. Bishop, the well-known diagnostician, 
whose experience with alcoholics and drug addicts has 
made him an authority on the subject, says that there 
are more drug addicts today than ever before; and that 
there is more illicit drug traffic than ever before. “How- 
ever,’ says Dr. Bishop, “this increase is not because of 
the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibi- 
tion has nothing whatever to do with it.’—New York 
Herald. November 22, 1920. 


366 SELECTED: ARTICLES 


A man has no personal liberty to sell rotten meat. 
He has no personal liberty to run his automobile on 
the left side of Fifth Avenue. He has no personal lib- 
erty to shoot off a revolver in a New York square. 
There is no such thing as personal liberty unless a man 
is the sole inhabitant of a wilderness. Every man gives 
up what he calls his personal liberty in return for the 
benefits he derives from society —Waulliam H. Anderson. 
Forum. 62:78-9. July, I9ro9. 


Prohibition has largely completed the work of doing 
away with immoral hotels and cafés [in Boston.] It 
represents a very important net gain that even though 
there is the much discussed drinking by way of bravado 
among young people, the open resorts whose deliberate 
purpose was to provide all the incitements to immorality 
have disappeared. . .. The social evil is facilitated rather 


by wine and beer than by so drastic a drink as bootleg 


whiskey.—Robert A. Woods. National Municipal Re- 
view. 12:709. December, 10923. 


For many years our reports have deplored the de- 
structive influence of intemperance upon family life. It 
still exists, but thanks to national prohibition, to a far 
less degree. In 1916, a prosperous pre-war year, in- 
temperance was second on our list and appeared in 47.7 
per cent of our cases. In 1921 it has decreased to 16.8 
per cent. In 1922 it had increased to 20.2 per cent— 
Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children. Scientific Temperance 
Journal. 32:7. Spring, 1923. 


More than a billion dollars was added to savings 
bank deposits in the fiscal year ending last June. Such 
deposits come chiefly from wage earners... . 

Total savings deposits are reported at $18,373,062,- 
000. That is about five billions less than our interest- 


Oe eS eee i 


Se ae 


PROHIBITION 367 


bearing national debt. It is double the maximum sav- 
ings bank deposits in any pre-war year, according to 
the Statistical Abstract... . The average deposit ranges 
between $405 in New England and $147 in the Eastern 
Central States. The Southern States report an average 
of $45, against $18 in 1912—New York Times (edi- 
torial), December I, 1923. 


I am not in favor of amending the Volstead act in 
respect to the amount of permissible alcohol in bever- 
ages. I am not in favor of allowing light wines and 
beer to be sold under the Eighteenth Amendment. I 
believe it would defeat the purpose of the amendment. 
No such distinction as that between wines and beer on 
the one hand and spirituous liquors on the other is 
practicable as a police measure. .. . Any such loophole 
as light wines and beer would make the amendment a 
laughing stock.—Willhiam Howard Taft. (Chicago Tri- 
bune, April, 1922.)—Anti-Saloon League Yearbook, 
TOLZ MP ce. 


The great improvement in business which followed 
the war, and is so clearly shown by the Babson chart, 
was very largely the result of the influence of prohi- 
bition and the salvage of our former waste of two bil- 
lion dollars or more each year due to the liquor traffic. 
I know of no other way to account for the great im- 
petus in home building, the tremendous numbers of new 
automobiles purchased, the larger volume of depart- 
ment store sales, accompanied at the same time by a 
continued swelling of savings bank deposits, when the 
tendency of business as a whole should normally have 
been downward.—Roger W. Babson. Statement. July 19, 


1923. 


I cannot recall of any reputable authority on this 
subject of narcotics and addiction making a statement 


368 SELECTED “ARTICLES 


to the effect that prohibition would or had increased 
or influenced the spread or consumption of narcotic 
drugs. Indeed, every report or survey entitled to sci- 
entific credence, and the foremost authorities on this 
subject, either men of personal experience in clinical 
work or of study into its history and literature, have 
emphatically declared that the coming of the prohibition 
amendment has had absolutely nothing to do with the 
development of the present narcotic drug situation and 
conditions.—Dr. Lester D. Volk. Illinois Medical Jour- 
nal. 43:428. June, 1923. 


I believe that the Eighteenth Amendment will add 
uncountable millions to the wealth of the United States; 
will enormously increase the prosperity of our people 
and will raise happiness and welfare, especially of our 
women and children, to a new and higher plane. I be- 
lieve, aS every man does who knows the facts, that a 
very formidable percentage of crime, misery and mis-_ 
fortune flows straight out of the liquor traffic; that the 
moral condition of the whole community has already been 
enormously benefited by the Eighteenth Amendment and 
that it will be benefited still more when the law comes 
to be better enforced. As a matter of fact crime and 
disease have been notably reduced already by its action 
and that action, of course, has only begun to be felt.— 
Gifford Pinchot, Governor of Pennsylvania, Annals of 
the American Academy. 109:255. September, 1923. 


Less than three months ago five thousand saloons, 
cabarets, coffee-shops and blind-tigers in Chicago were 
openly selling whisky, gin, wines and beer, which were 
also being served in cafés and restaurants. Twenty 
breweries were making and distributing real beer. More 
than 150 persons were killed by moonshine whisky in 
Chicago in the first nine months of the year, and 97 
per cent. of moonshine liquor seized in police raids was 


PROHIBITION 360 


found to be poisonous. .. . Said the Chicago Daily News, 
in September: “There is such big money in making and 
selling illicit beer in Chicago that the men who are get- 
ting that money find it desirable to employ their own ex- 
pert gunmen to do battle in Chicago’s streets for 
monopoly rights in beer.” But matters came to a climax, 
when, following other affrays, two gunmen were killed 
in the street. Mayor Dever of Chicago clamped on the 
lid, .. . the Miayor’s success is chiefly due to two things: 
the cooperation of Federal, State and city officials, and 
the revocation of the licenses of all places of business 
in which intoxicants were found. . . . Since September 
18, when the Mayor’s campaign started, 1,723 licenses 
have been revoked; 2,345 drinking-places have closed 
voluntarily. Only 1,195 of these places of refreshment 
are now operated and, according to the Mayor, “you 
can’t buy a drink openly in any one of them.’ The New 
York Herald gives figures showing a decided drop in 
arrests for drunkedness, and also in the numbers of 
burglaries, robberies and other crimes.—Literary Digest. 
79: 16. December 18, 1923. 


We believe that prohibition has ushered in a new day 
for the workers of America; that it is enabling them 
and their families to enjoy comforts that they never 
could afford when a part of the pay envelope went for 
booze; that labor must choose between putting its money 
over the saloon bar or putting it into labor cooperative 
banks; and that the “wholesome” wines and beer recom- 
mended by the American Federation of Labor conven- 
tion constitute the precise reason why millions of workers 
in Europe have never been able to secure as high a 
standard of living as have American workers,—their 
brains are so pickled in alcohol that they cannot think 
straight. No man ever yet improved his lot by taking 
poison into his system. 

' We further charge that the liquor interests of this 


370 SELECTED ARTICLES 


country have always been in league with the most ruth- 
less exploiters of labor and the worst corrupters of our 
political life. As a prominent Denver labor leader, 
quoted in a recent issue of the New Republic, states: “In 
Denver we had 108 unions meeting in 28 different places, 
mostly above saloons. We could not get together be- 
cause the liquor interests didn’t want to see us bunched. 
But when the state went dry, we were able to put it 
over, and now we have a splendid labor temple, owned 
and controlled by the local unions.’’ Count up for your- 
self the labor temples that have been erected since the 
coming of prohibition. As the late John Mitchell, be- 
loved leader of the United Mine Workers, declared: 
“Tear down a saloon and in its place is built a factory.” 
—Editorial. Locomotive Engineers Journal. 57:865. No- 
vember, 1923. 


INDEX 


Abatement of nuisance, 113. 

Accidents, 21, 29, 213, 267, 281. 

Ackerman, Leon, 135. 

Acute alcoholism, 280. 

Addams, Jane, 75. 

Adulteration of liquor, 82, 92. 

Aeronautics, 25, 26. 

Affirmative discussion, 157-263. 

Alcohol, nature of, 57; a drug, 3, 
4, 16; unnecessary as medicine, 
oJ tee 7422753.) 100d,/ 3, 6,.:7; 
Seno tSeTO;aro Oty atood,. 7, 
Ss Oser 59 10,27 1.0 2721) ay poison, 
15; 16, 57; 58, 59-72, 271, 272; 
30 times as poisonous as nourish- 
ing, 271; only % food value of 
taw materials, 272; effects people 
differently, 312; more consume 
in beer than in whisky, 364; de- 


natured, 233; a competitor to 
gasoline, 231-4; consumption of, 
167; consumption not decreased 


by prohibition, 175; children 
must be shielded from, 209; and 
animals, 64; effect on liver, 6; 
physiological effects, 3-20. 
Alcohol habit, begins with beer, 330, 


Bar 

Alcoholic liquor, a cause of crime, 
55, 63, 75, 76, 77, 78, 98, 100, 
368; not cause of Chime; 25 7); 
cause of divorce, 77; caused fall 
of nations, 72; cause of insanity, 
78, 80; cause of misery, 78, 79, 
100; cause of pauperism, 77; 
cause of poverty, 77; cause of 
suicide, 78; cause of tuberculosis, 
75; cause of vice, 75, 76, 78, 79, 
103; consumption decreased by 
prohibition, 270, 272, 278, 293; 
corrupts politics, 69; cost of, 28, 
29, 30, 67-8, 226, 227, 302; and 
degeneracy, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 
62, 63, 65; demand for, 186; de- 
moralizing, 54; destroys charac- 
ter, 68, 69; and disease, 58, 336- 
413; easy to make, xvii; economic 
results, 21-31; endangers liberty, 
69, 70; evils of, xxxv, xxxvi, 53- 
80, 73, 74; and heredity, 16, 17, 
TOM 2 OE OZ NO4AN 05,1 O04. O53) 1n 
history, 56, 81 et seq; and in- 
dustry, 21-8; and insanity, 9, 10, 
15, 20, 55, 65; and longevity, 10- 
14, 17, 19; on ships, 194, 195, 
230, 231; a shock absorber, 271. 

Alcoholism, 26, 204; cost of, xx, 
Foe we les Feseyoietanl epi. \Keted) ero 
deaths from, 203; increased under 


prohibition, 214; hampers prog- 
ress, 74; and international su- 
premacy xxxvii, 334, 335; and 
labor xxxvii; obsolete, 26. 

Alden, Robert, 221-43. 

Alexander the Great, 364. 
American Association for Organiz- 
ing Family Social Work, 304. 
American Bankers’ Association, 298. 
American Bar Association, 211, 295. 
American Federation of Labor, 184, 

243, 306, 308, 369. 

American ideals, 356-61. 

Anderson, Roscoe C., 134. 

Anderson, William H., 190, 364, 366, 

Angell, James R., xix, 105, 212. 

Anheuser-Busch, 245, 246. 

rae es Bill 80;" 105; 1 106; pits, 
116. 

Anti-canteen law, tot. 

Anti-Saloon League, xxxix, 86, 87, 
S8.0100;, 105, 107! 510.) Te0ststs 
T82;) 186,) 190,, 191, 106,). 200,021, 
Zoe i225, ue 27h oO NE oO MmEbG 
church in action, 196; a political 
organization, 196. 

Army war college, 60. 

Arrests, 1'163,, 165; 325/iN36275 or 
drunkenness, 142, 152, 156, 163, 
TOS 6204520750 270s 1 200; 205 meoo, 
290, 291, 202, 293, 325, 326; de- 
creased under prohibition, 363. 

Arthur, P. M., 08. 

Aschaffenburg, Cases 675 7A TBs 


319. 
Assault and battery, 75. 
Association Against the Prohibition 
Amendment, 222, 227, 228, 229. 
Association of Life Insurance Presi- 
dents, 208. 
Association Opposed to 
Prohibition, 38. 
Astor, Lady, 74. 
Atwater, W. O., 3, 6, 7. 
Automobiles, xxi, 24, 198, 213, 301, 
302; a cause of crime, 356; in- 
creased by prohibition, 268, 270. 


National 


Babson, Roger W., 367. 

Babylon, fall due to alcohol, 72. 
Bagnell, Robert, 141. 

Bahamas, get liquor from England, 


206. 

Bailey, Joseph W., 213. 

Baker, Newton D., 50, 103. 

Banks, 29, 214, 215; benefited by 
prohibition, 334; deposits, 227, 
2290, 267, 268, 270, 281, 298, 366, 
367; labor, 310. 


372 INDEX 


Baptist Brotherhood, 50, 51, 102, 


103. 

Barrett, Albert M., 15. 

Bates, Hamlett, 325-6. 

Beebe, Dr., 6: , Aa 

Beer, xv, xxi, xxiii, xxxvi, xxxviili, 
XR KEN Od a Os oy LOL; esl 7oees 
335-52; defined, xii; the begin- 
ning of the drink habit; (321, 330; 
331, 362, 363; in Belgium, 344, 
345; a brutalizer, 317-22; cause 
of crime, 329, 330, 331, 336; 
dangerous in warm climates, 322; 
does not decrease use of hard 
liquor, 321, 336, 341-3; demoral- 
izing, 341; caused disturbance in 
German army, 321; causes 
drunkenness, 323-31, 336; does 
not produce drunkenness, 310, 
311; effect of, 17-18, 282; legaliz- 
ing would vitiate prohibition, 367; 
apparently harmless, 362; not 
harmless, 321, 339; very injuri- 
OUS, 322, 336-41; more injurious 
than brandy, 320; more harmful 
than whisky, 364; more noxious 
than wine, 317, 362; worse than 
alcohol, 319; the curse of Ger- 
many, 344; sold by grocers, 245; 
dilates the heart, 320; not in- 


spiring to writers, 339; intoxi- 
cating, 364; not intoxicating, 
255; cause of kidney disease, 


318, 337; was o/to of liquor 
traffic, 236; causes liver trouble, 
337; contains lupulin, 318, 319; 
the national beverage, 243; not 
1/3 as nutritious as barley, 273, 
274 0a cil) POLSON Hh 342s se atses 
poverty, 331, 336: legalizing beer 
destroyed prohibition in Mas- 
sachusetts, 326-31; legalizing it 
would increase difficulty of en- 
forcing prohibition, 329, 3313 
shortens life, 338; facilitates the 
social evil, 366; makes drinker 
stupid, 318, 319, 339; a tempta- 
tion to youth, 330; unlawfully 
made, 167, 234; contains no vita- 
mines, 273; not wholesome, 336- 
433 favored by Woodrow Wilson, 
260. 

Beer Brewers’ Association, 351. 

Beer Company case, 97. 

Beer drinking countries the most 
alcohol drenched, 320; intemper- 


ate, 343-50. : 
Beer drinkers, unable to resist 
disease, 336-41; dangerous to 


operate on, 337; lives shortened, 
338; ruffians, 339. 

Beer rebellion, 90. 

Beer without hard liquor, tried in 
Georgia, 303-4; tried in Massa- 
chusetts, 303, 322-31; tried in 
Hawaii, 304. 

Belanger, Chief, 245. 

Belgium, drunkenness in, 344-5. 

Bellevue Hospital, 44. 


Benedict, Dr., 3109. 

Benge, Eugene J., 106, 107. 

Betsy Ross House, 144. 

Bibliography, xliii-lxx1i. 

Bicknell, Ernest P., 27, 28. 

Bill of Rights, 248, 249. 

Bishop, Dr. Ernest S., 365. 

Blair, Henry W., 81, 87, 99, 363. 

Blind tigers, 47. 

Blindness, xxxv, 1098. 

Board of Temperance, Prohibition, 
and Public Morals of the M.E 
Church, 46. 

Boise, H. M., 

Bok, Edward. WwW ape Roy) Sore 

Bootleg liquor, 153, 155. 

Bootleggers, xxi, 105, 123: profits 
Of 3Ose2a7s 238; untaxed, 219, 
247; patronized by well-to-do, 


bis 

Bootlegging, 206; in 1710, 92; 
would be increased by legalizing 
pee 331; by university men, 155, 


156. 

Borden, Judge, 324. 

Boston Family Welfare 
304. 

Bowers, Dr. Edwin F., 28, 20, 
81, 317-22, 362, 363. 
Bowman vs C. & N. W. RR., go. 

Boys and alcohol, 43-5, 102. 

Boys now drinking, 206. 

Boys helped by prohibition, 287, 
288, 296. 

Brady, Peter J., 20. 

Brandy, prescriptions prohibited in 
24 states, 275. 

Breweries violate the law, 234, 351, 


Society, 


352. 

Brewers, seldom drink beer, 
controlled saloons, 351, 
political power, 35r. 

Brewery, a manufactory of drunk- 
ards, 341; interests, growth of, 
351. 

Bother of officials, xviii, 

Briefs, xiii-xlii. 

British Board of Control, 311. 

Brookfield, Dr., 207. 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
neers, 104, 308. 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen 
and Enginemen, 308. 

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 


308. 
Broussard, Edwin S., 


aaa) 

Blow John A., 363. 

Brundage, Attorney General, 4o. 

Bryan, William J., 29, 30, 31, 41, 
359, 364. 

Bryce, Alexander, 17, 78-9. 

Bureau of Internal Revenue, 124. 

Burglary, arrests for, 285, 290, 291. 

Burton-Opitz, Dr. Russell, 16. 

Business depression, 170, 171. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, xix, xxv, 
173-8, 213, 219-21, 246-55. 


340; 
362; help 


198, 360. 


231, 232, 233; 


INDEX 373 


California, drunkenness in, 348, 349. 

Campbell, Philip P., A: 

Capital in liquor industry employs 
few men, 300. 

Carey, Henry G., 348. 

Cartier, Jacques, 81. 

Catholic church, 79, 196, 197. 

Catholic Total Abstinence Union, 97. 

Chain stores benefited by prohibi- 
tion, 300, 334. 

Chancellor Day, 360, 361. 

Character destroyed by alcohol, 68, 


69. 

Charity, 215, 216; demand for de- 
creased by prohibition, 267, 268, 
276, 296, 304, 305, 306, 363, 366. 

Cherokee nation, 95. 

Cherrington, Ernest H., 21-6, 106, 
107, 108. 

Chesterton, G. K., xxv, 30, 257. 

Chicago Federation of Labor, 307. 

Chicago, Sunday closing in, 46, 47; 
committee on crime, 76; cor- 
rupted by alcohol, 69; vice com- 
mission, 78; vice in, 78; viola- 
tion of law in, 47. 

Chicco, Vincent, 47, 48. 

Children, begin to drink on beer, 
362; misled by beer, 330; must 
be shielded from alcohol, 209; 
helped by prohibition, 287, 288, 
296; in saloons, 50, 102; now 
drinking liquor, 206, 218. 

Christ, xxii, 249, 250. 

Church membership increased by 
prohibition, 268, 270. 

Church Temperance Society, 98. 

Churches in politics, 196, 197. 

Cider not prohibited, 189; in 
Great Britain, 349. 

Cities, corruption in, 609. 

City councils debauched by saloon, 


79° 
Civil damage, 96, 113. 
Civil Service Commission, 119, 127. 
Civil war, 83, 84. 
Clarke, John H., xix, 212. 
Clarke, Walter, 75. s 
Cleveland, Sunday closing in, 50, 


¢ 
Caiemae Walter M., 5, 6, 15. 
College men bootleggers, 155, 156. 
Commission to investigate drunken- 
ness in Massachusetts, 104. 
Commissioner of Happiness, 283; 
of internal revenue, 110; of labor, 
101. 
Committee of Fifty, 100. 
Congregational Total Abstinence So- 
ciety, 97. 
Soe sak corrupted by whisky ring, 
48. 
Congressional Temperance Society, 


95- 
Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance 


Got3a3c- 
Constitution of the United States, 
173, 174, 175, 181, 182, 187, 188, 
i” 


198, 219-20; disregarded, 251, 
252. 

Meese Calvin; 248,725 tua eae 
280. 

Coombs, Reyv., 330. 

Cooper, Sir Astley, 337. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 345. 

Corruption, xviii, xxxvi, 40, 46, 47, 
48,.53, 69, 122, 123, 124,) 125, 
126, 129, 130, 133, 134, 150, 151, 
152, 198, 217, 351, 359, 360, 361. 

Corruption in cities, 69, 360, 361. 

Cost, of liquor, xx, 30, 31, 67, 68, 
302; of bootleggers’ liquor, 216; 
of liquor reduced by making at 
home, 215. 

Cost of prohibition 
iy: 

Courts clogged with liquor cases, 
142, 149, 164, 165, 179, 198, 202, 
PAM hye: 

Couzens, James, xxv. 

Cox, James M., 46. 

Crafts, Wilbur F., 1o1. 

Credit Mobilier, 359. 

Crime, xix, XxXxv, 33, 34-51, 55, 63, 
75> 77, 78, 79, 100, 119, 132, 
137, 152, 178, 179, 198, 211, 212, 
213, 283-93, 323-30, 352-62; al- 
cohol a cause, 55, 63, 75, 76, 775 
78, 98, 100; beer a cause, 329, 
330-1; causes of, 352-62; de- 
creased by prohibition, 267, 268, 
270, 279, 280, 285, 286, 287, 288, 
289, 290, 291, $54, 363, 368; in- 
creased under prohibition, 207, 
281; less in prohibition states, 
354; automobile a cause, 356; 
newspapers a cause, 355; cost of, 
67; by liquor interests, xxxiv, 
33-51, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 
90, 93, IOI, 102, 103, 141-50, 328. 

Criminal class, 179. 

Criminal rich, 356-9. 

Criminals, intemperate, 74, 104; in 
federal prisons, 178. 

Crooked thirteen, 360. 

Crowley vs. Christensen, 100. 

Cummings, Hugh S., 153. 

Cushny, Dr., 10. 


enforcement, 


Darrow, Clarence, 257, 258. 

Dartmouth College, 156. 

Daugherty, Harry M., xxxvii, 48, 
49, 118, 125, 179. 

Day, James Roscoe, 360, 361. 

Death rate reduced by prohibition, 
267, 275, 288, 289, 290, 291, 299, 
300, 301, 364. 

Deaths, from alcoholism, 60, 61, 
203; caused by poison liquor, 199, 
203s 21 3p eid: 

Degeneracy, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 62, 
63, 64, 65, 69, 72, 74, 77- 

Delavan, E. C., 346. 

Delbrueck, Dr., 320. 

Delinquency of minors decreased 
by prohibition, 287, 288. 


374 INDEX 


Department stores benefited by pro- 
hibition, 334. 

Deposits in banks, 214, 215, 227, 
228, H2LO7NZOG, A 7OVeols (290,73345 
366, 367. 

Dever, William E., 360. 

Devon, James, 76. 

Dickens, Charles, 346. 

Direct legislation, 310. 

Discontent, 29. 

Dispensary system, 46, 47, 48, 100, 
102. 

Distillation easy, xvii. 

Distilled spirits consumed, 191, 192. 

District attorneys, 262, 263. 

Ditman, Norman E., 19. 

Divorce ecru 72 3s 

Doran, James M., 153. 

Dow, Neal, 28, 96. 

Dred Scott case, 176. 

Drink habit begins with beer, 321, 
63. 

Dees, moderate, 30. 

Drinking healths, 8o. 

Deeg diction, '276,) 277, 3653 367; 
368. 

Drug stores refuse to keep whisky, 
241. 

Drunkards, names_ posted, 92; be 
gin on beer and wine, 342. 
Drunkenness, xv, 53, 54, 75) 92, 1043 
among boys, 172; arrests for, 142, 
152, 156, 163, 165, 204, 267, 270, 
280, 285, 286, 290, 291, 292, 293, 
425,.326%) cost. Of, 29;).a. vice, 2503 
in history, 82; increasing, 213; 
laws against, 80, 91, 92; from 
beer, 323-31; in beer drinking 
countries, 310, 311; in wine 
drinking countries, 255, 311, 346; 
in Belgium, 344, 345; in Cali- 
fornia, 348, 349; in France, 345, 
346, 347; in Germany, 343, 344; 


in Great Britain, 349, 350; in 
Switzerland, 347, 348. 

Duffield, President, 290. 

Dunn, Rev. J. B., 100, 335-52. 


Durham, Charles L., 259. 
Dyer, Oliver, 339. 
Dysentery caused by beer, 322. 


Easley, John E., 134. 

Economic loss of alcoholism, 67, 68. 

Edge, Walter E., 261. 

Edmunds, Dr., 337. 

Education, 360, 361; by brewers, 
245. 

Edwards, Edward I., 30. 

Eighteenth amendment, xxxii, 38, 
Z0NcTOA, HLOSs LOO; TOF, LOL Los 
219; text of, 109; adoption of, 
RKO 7s ll CoM OO WLOA WiLOS lOO, 
107, 201; impossible to repeal, 
218, 247, 292; simple and elastic, 
218; a new principle in the con- 
stitution, 219, 246, 247, 261; not 
enforced, 173, 174, 175; wnen- 
forceable, 247; immoral, 246, 248, 
249; impossible to observe, 199; 


created disrespect for law, 212, 
213; bad results of, 247, 248, 249; 
caused corruption, 261; not cause 
of crime, 362; corrupts police, 
175; curtailed liberty, 175, 186; 
estroyed states’ rights, 188; not 
checked use of liquor, 175; re- 
peal a moral question, 251. 
Ellikon Hospital for inebriates, 311, 


320. 

Ellis, Havelock, 74. 
Enforcement a failure, 258. 
Engineers and drink, 21. 
England’s beer tax, 235. 

English, W. D. W., 150. 
Epilepsy, xxxv. 

Everett Labor Council, 307. 
Evolution retarded by alcohol, 60. 


Family welfare, 304, 305, 306. 

Fantus, Dr. Bernard, 15. 

Farmers may make wine and cider, 
189, 216. 

Farrington, Wallace R., 304. 

Federal Reserve Board, 208. 

Federation of Women’s Clubs, 126. 

Feeblemindedness, xxxv, 255. 

Fifty year franchise steal, 359. 

Fish, Stuyvesant, 159-73, 228. 

Fish, William L., 229, 230, 231, 
233. 

Fisher, Irving, 10. 

Fisk, Lyman, 19. 

Fiske, John, 187. 

Five civilized tribes, 102. 

Foley, John T., 134. 

Food conserved by prohibition, 272. 

Foote, Caleb, 345. 

Ford, Henry, 232. 

Foreigners, most of moonshiners, 
151; and prohibition, 278. 

Forel, Prof., 320. 

Forty thieves, 360. 

Foulke, William D., 117, 

Fox, Austen G., xxv. 

Fox, Hugh F., 154, 178-86, 211-10. 

France, drunkenness in, 311, 345-7. 

Frankel, Lee K., 2509. 

Frankfurter, Felix, 107. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 93. 

Franklin, Fabian, 107, 213. 

Fruit, 273. 

Fugitive slave law, 254. 

Fugitt, George A., 135. 

Furbush, Edith M., 19. 


131-8. 


Gallivan, James A., 262, 263. 

Gary, Elbert H., 268-71. 

Gemmill, William N., 283-92, 293. 

Georgia tried prohibition with beer, 
303. 

German-American Alliance, 36-8. 

Germany, drunkenness in, 311, 343, 


344. 

Gillen, John L., 363. 

Gin made unlawfully, 237. 
Gladstone, William E., 28. 
Goddard, Dr. Henry H., 255. 
Golden rule policy, 156, 





INDEX 375 


Gompers, 306, 307, 308, 309. 

Good Templars, 96. 

Gordon, Alfred, v be 

Grapes, 163, 206, 273. 

Graves, Louis, 255, 256. 

Great Britain, beer and cider li- 
cense, 349; drunkenness in, 349, 


350. 
Great destroyer, 56-73, 102. 
Greece, fall due to alcohol, 72. 
Greeley, Horace, 342, 345. 
Guy’s Hospital, 337. 
Guyer, Michael F., 16. 


Hall, James W., 214. 

Hall, Dr. Winfield S., 7-9. 

Hanley, J. Frank, a 74. 

Harding, Warren G., 46, 105, 106, 
£17, 1218; 119, 134; 184, 186, 180, 
101, ealt- 

Hare, Dr., 261. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 99. 

Harrison anti-narcotic act, 127. 

Harte, Judge, 129. 

Hashish, 318, 319. 

Hatton, Augustus R., 46. 

Hawaii tried prohibition legalizing 
beer, 304. 

Hayes, Will, 118. 

Haynes, Roy, xxxiv, 97, 131-8, 150, 
155, 180, 214, 223, 258. 

Hayward, William, 132. 

Health, improved by _ prohibition, 
B07, 268, 270; impaired by beer, 
336-41. 

Heredity, xxxv, 16, 17, 19, 20. 

High license, 98. 

High school attendance increased by 
prohibition, 268, 297. 

Hillier, Dr. Sidney, 18. 

Hinkley, Alonzo G., 256. 

History of nations, 72. 

Hobart, George S., 303, 304. 

Hobson Resolution, 104. 

Hobson, Richmond P., 56-73, 88, 
102, 104. 

Hoch, Dr., ro. 

Holland, J. G., 347, 348. 

Home brew, negligible, xxxiv, 154; 
6 to 8 per cent alcohol, 168. 

Home brewing, 216. 

Home building, 214; increased by 
prohibition, 268, 297. 

Home life bettered by prohibition, 
207. 

Home made, beer, 235. 

Home made liquor cheaper, 215. 

Homicide, arrests for, 285, 290, 291; 
increasing, 213. 

Hops, 318. 

Howard, Charles P., 152. 

Hubbard, S. Dana, 199-211, 214. 

Hudson, Henry, 82. 

Hueppe, Dr., 320. 

Hutchinson, Robert, 16. 

Hutchinson, Woods, 15, 271-83. 


Illicit stills, xiv, 167, 216. 

Illinois law violated, 46. 

Indian hemp, 318. 

Indians, 82, 102; annihilated by 
liquor, 93; sale of liquor pro- 
hibited among, 63, 89, 90, 91, 92, 
932 942,95) 99- 

Industrial accidents, see Accidents. 

Industrial revolution, 23. 

Industry, 21-6. 

Inefficiency of labor, 67. 

Inge, Dean, 174. 

Ingersoll, Robert G., 54-6. 

Insanity, xxxv, 9, 10, 15, 20, 55, 
65, 74, 78, 80, 198; cost of, 67; 
decreased by prohibition, 365. 

Insurance, 24, 25, 267, 298, 299, 
334: year book, 299, 300. 

Intemperence, see Drunkenness. 

Intemperance the greatest curse, 
340. 

International Reform Bureau, 1o1. 

International Temperance Congress, 


97- 
Interstate commerce, 99, 103. 


Intoxicating liquor, defined, 110, 
STZ 
Intoxication, defined, 312; four 


stages of, 314, 315. 
Invisible government, 359. 
Iron and steel, 22. 
Irwin, Wallace, 282. 


Jails, closed by prohibition, 294; 
prisoners in, 327. 

James, Herman G., 257, 258. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 93, 94, 255. 

Jeilson, Clarke, 326. 

Jewett, Frances G., 16, 43-5. 

Tenn William E., 225. 
ohnston, Alexander, 29. 

Hie James E., 2309. 

ones, Richard T., 306, 310. 

Journalism, see Newspapers. 


Kelley, Howard A.,; 321. 
Kelynack, Dr. T. N., 74. 

Kenyon, William S., 79. 

King of blind tigers, 47. 

Kirk, EWN.5 3458; 

Kline, M., 258. 

Kohler, Fred, 51, 103. 

Koren, John, xix, 15, 19, 20, 28, 77, 


212. 
Kraeplin, Prof., 319. 


Labor, xxxvii, 217, 306-10; bene- 
fited by prohibition, 268-71; fa- 
vors prohibition, 270; made more 
efficient by prohibition, 67, 281, 
333, 334, 335; needs prohibition, 
xxxvil; prohibition discriminates 
against, 182, 183, 189, 217; banks, 
29, 310; temples, 309, 310: 
unions and prohibition, 306-10. 

Lambert, Alexander, 44. 

Lauchheimer, Sylvan H., 256, 257. 

Law and Order League, 98, 191, 


376 INDEX 


Law, of prohibition, 109-16; viola- 
tion of, 105, 171, 172, 173, 184, 
185; violated by brewers, 351, 
352; violated by liquor interests, 
33-51, 102, 103, 141-50; violated 
by saloonkeepers, 328; prohibition 
created disrespect for, 172, 173, 
LS4-Opucl ie towels elt OL 25 L, 
253, 256, 259, 270, 289, 352-62. 

Lawlessness, 217. 

Lee, William G., 308. 

Leisler, Jacob, 91. 

Leisy vs. Hardin, 99. 

Liberty, 7x 5xi-xXxxit, -2°305 
gered by alcohol, 69, 70. 

License, laws, 89, 90, 91, 98; cases, 


95: 
Riebiguy Drea. 
Life insurance, 24, 25, 267, 298, 299, 


endan- 


334s : 

Life insurance companies call beer 
deadly, 338. 

Life shortened by beer, 338. 

Light wine, xxi, xxxviii-xxxix, 3357 
52; defined, xiii; favored by 
Woodrow Wilson, 260. 

Lill, William, 341. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 34, 43, 176, 254, 


359. r 

Liquor, adulteration of, 82, 92; 
Gost ol, Xx, 25,1 20,7305) 075 0a. 
on ships, 194-5; smuggling of, xvi, 
I19, 135, 136, 167, 179, 217, 219; 
still obtainable, 202. 

Liquor Control Board, 165, 311. 

Liquor Dealers’ Association, 48. 

Liquor traffic, the cause of crime, 
368; corrupted politics, 48, 49, 
370; unregulated, xviii, 247; vio- 
lates the law, xxxiv, 33-51. 

Lloyd George, xl. 

Lobby, 87. 

Local option, 95. 

Longevity, 10-14, 17, I9. 

Louis Philippe, 346. 

Lupulin, 318, 319. 


MacAdam, George, 150. 
McAdoo, William, 365. 
McConnell, William, 124, 125, 126, 


120. 

MceCardy, CV Ay 1333: 

MacDonald, A. B., 153. 

McIntosh, James, 352-62. 

McQuigg, J. R., 51. 

Machinery, 21-6. 

Malt liquor too bulky for bootleg- 
gers, 192. 

Marshall, John, 261. 

Massachusetts, tried prohibition leg- 
alizing beer, 303, 322-31; Com- 
mission to Investigate Drunken- 
ness, 74, 75; Society for Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children, 
366. 

Mathew, Father, 96, 97. 

Maxim, Hudson, xxv. 

Mayflower brought liquor, 82. 


Medical profession annoyed by 
prohibition, 205. 

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 
159, 160, 214, 301. 

Michigan law violated, 46. 

Milborne, Jacob, 91. 

Miles, Walter R., 17, 18. 

Miller, E. M., 302. 

Miller, John, 92. 

Milner, Duncan C., 47. 

Mining industry, 22, 23. 

Minors, sale of liquor to, 50, 92, 
102. 

Minute Man, 229, 230. 

Misery, 78, 79, 100. 

Mitchell, John, 370. 

Montalembert, Count de, 346. 

Moonshine liquor, xxxiv, 153, 155, 
ae poisonous, 369; making of, 
167. 

te improved by prohibition, 
366. 

Morel, Jules, 15. 

Morse, Newton, 325. 

Mortality of alcohol and war, 60, 61. 

Mote, Carl H., 30. 

Motor trucks, xxi, 24. 

Moving pictures benefited by pro- 
hibition, 267, 297, 355. 

Mugler vs. Kansas, 908. 

Murphysboro Chamber of Com- 
merce, 355. 

Myerson, Abraham, 36s. 


Narcotic drugs, 198, 256, 276, 277, 
365, 367, 368. 

Nathan, Dr. D., 363. 

National Civil Service 
League, 126. 

National Prohibition Act, see Vol- 
stead Act. 

National Temperance Convention, 


Reform 


95. 

National Temperance Society, 97. 

Nations, rise and fall of, 72. 

Nationwide prohibition, 99, 104. 

Navigation, 23. 

Negative discussion, 265-370. 

Negroes, 63. 

Nero, 364. 

Newsholme, Arthur, 46. 

Newspapers, vii, viii, 41, 352, 353, 
355; do not publish facts, 222; 
do not tell the truth, 353; a cause 
of crime, 355. 

New Hebrides bill, troz. 

New Jersey Democratic platform, 
Aig) SPL 

New York city, corruption in, 69. 

New York law violated, 46. 

New York Supreme Court, 1096. 

Newton, John, 28. 

Ninevah, fall due to alcohol, 72. 

Non-enforcement of law, xxxii, 
XXXili. 

Nonpartisan W.C.T.U., 99. 

Northwestern Life Insurance Co., 


338. 
Nuisances, 113. 


——— 


INDEX O77 


Oakley, Imogen B., 48, 106, 122-9, 


is2 

O’Conor, Charles, 135. 

O’Donnell, Jack, 138-40, 365. 

Ohio Liquor Dealers, 43-5. 

Ohio, liquor laws of, 45; law vio- 
lated, 46; corruption in, 48, 49, 
359; civil damage act, 96; con- 
stitution of 1851, 83, 96. 

Oliver, Thomas, 75. 

Olson, Floyd B., 181. 

Order of Railroad Conductors, 308. 

Organizations, supporting prohibi- 
tion, Ixxi; opposing prohibition, 


x: 
Original package case, 99. 


Parkhurst, Charles H., 76. 

Party boss, 47. 

Patent medicines, xxii, 40, 41. 
Patterson, Rev. Dr., 349. 
Pauperism, xxxv, 77, 98; cost of 


67. 

Pear, William H., 365. 

Pearl, Raymond, vii, 10-14, 27, 257. 

Pendleton, Micajah, 93. 

Penn, William, 143. 

Penna. Federation of Labor, 307. 

Periodicals, supporting prohibition, 
ont opposing prohibition, Ix- 
xi 

Permits, 111, 239; abused, 
fraudulently issued, 130. 

Personal liberty, xxxi-xxxii, 49, 
175, 364, 366; destroyed by pro- 
hibition, 208. ~ 

Philadelphia corrupted by alcohol, 


304; 


69. 

Physicians refuse to prescribe 
liquor, 274. 

Pickett, Deets, 47, 364. 

Pierce, Bedford, 8o. 

Pilot, Rev. H. W., 50. 

Pinchot, Gifford, xvii, 140, 141, 143, 
144, 145, 152, 153, 364, 368. 

Pitman, Robert C., 323, 328, 330, 


331. 

Plehn, Dr. Alfred, 322. 

Plummer, John, 346. 

Poison liquor, xviii. 

Police, refuse to enforce law, 51; 
power, 98. 

Political corruption, 359, 360; see 
also Corruption. 

Political power of brewers, 351. 

Politics corrupted by liquor interests, 


370. 

Pollock, Horatio, 19. 

Poor, prohibition discriminates 
against, 182, 183, 189, 217. 

Poorhouse population decreased by 
prohibition, 296. 

Pope, Alexander, 136. 

Possession of liquor, 114. 

Postal Savings, 298. 

Poverty, 77, 267, 268, 276, 296. 

Prescriptions for whisky, 111, 239, 
240, 241. 


Press, see Newspapers. 

Prisoners, decreased by prohibition, 
267, 279, 280, 294, 295, 296; in 
Massachusetts, 327; in jail, 327. 

Prohibition, a menace, 256; a na- 
tional disgrace, 219; a national 
scandal, 211; and blindness, 198; 
and) charity, ) (215 2i6saevand 
churches, 196, 197; and crime, 
ZOO,g LO2-5, 9) TOL TOO wer I. wret os 
213; and foreigners, 278; and 
health, 159, 160; an house 
building, 214; and insanity, 198; 
and labor, 306-10; and liberty, 30; 
and narcotics, 198; and naviga- 
tion, 194, 195; benefits of, 267, 
268, 270-82, 286-93; benefited 
chain stores, 300, 334; benefited 
department stores, 334; benefited 
moving pictures, 267, 297; bene- 
fited workmen, 364, 369, 370; 
bettered family welfare, 304, 305, 
306; bettered home life, 297; 
brought prosperity, 301, 302, 309, 
367, 368; cannot be imposed by 
force, 219; caused bootlegging, 
206; caused corruption, 217; 
caused crime, 212, 213; caused 
deathsy)) “1969, 0203)" 233,.e ar: 
caused depression, 170, 171; 
caused drinking among children, 
206, 218; caused lawlessness, 171, 
172, 184-6, 207; 7219, 2485172515 
255, 256; caused loss of revenue, 
218; caused police corruption, 
257; congested the courts, 142, 
149, 164, 165, 179, 198, 202, 203, 
217; contrary to our principles, 
187, 188; cost of, 197, 221, 241, 
242; cost of liquor under, 226, 
227, 236; decreased accidents, 267, 
281; decreased acute alcoholism, 
280; decreased arrests, 267, 279, 
280, 285, 286, 287-94, 363; de- 
creased consumption of liquor, 
270, 272, 278, 293; decreased 
cost of production, 332, 333, 334, 
335; decreased crime, 267, 268, 
270, 279, 280, 285-91, 354, 363, 
368; decreased death rate, 267, 
275, 288, 289, 290, 291, 299, 300, 
301, 364; decreased delinquency, 
287, 288; decreased demand for 
charity, 304, 305, 306, 363, 366; 
decreased disorder in strikes, 279; 
decreased insanity, 365; de- 
creased prison population, 267, 
279, 280, 294, 295, 296; de- 
creased poorhouse’ population, 
296; decreased poverty, 267, 268, 
276, 296; decreased waste of 
food, 272; depressed grain mar- 
ket, 170; destroyed property, 169; 
difficult to enforce, 217; discrimi- 
nates against workmen, 182, 183, 
189, 217; discriminates in favor 
of farmers, 189; does not pro- 
hibit, 208, 257; effect on farmers, 
198; effect on industry, 197; en- 


378 INDEX 


forcement bureau, 117-31; en- 
forced in Chicago, 369; hurt no- 
body but liquor interests, 363; 
improved health, 267, 268, 270; 
improved morality, 36; in Fin- 
land, 253; in Norway, 253; in- 
creased automobiles, 268, 270; 
increased attomobile accidents, 
213; increased church member- 
ship, 268, 270; increased crime, 
207, 281, 353; increased divorces, 
213: increased drunkenness, 213; 
increased home building, 268, 
297; increased homicide, 213; in- 
creased life insurance, 267, 298, 
299, 334; increased production, 
332, 333, 334, 335; increased 
restaurants, 281; increased sale 
of automobiles, 301, 302; in- 
creased savings, 27, 28, 29, 214, 
ZIG 227. 1220.20 742 70,0 2Ol sn 2Oo, 
334, 366, 367; increased school 
attendance, 268, 270, 276, 297; 
increased suicides, 213; increased 
taxes, 229; increased use of 
fresh fruit, 273; increased use of 
hard liquor, 207; increased use 
of narcotics, 256; increased our 
world markets, 334, 335; inter- 
national effect of, 193-6; is con- 
fiscation, 183, 184; is demoraliz- 
ing, 105; is hypocracy, 249, 250; 
is slavery, 30; labor temples 
built under, 309, 310; legalizing 
beer destroys, 303, 304, 322-31; 
loss in revenue, 166, 167; makes 
labor more efficient, 281, 333; 
334, 335; makes labor more 
steady, 333, 334, 3353; makes 
labor sullen, 217; makes rich 
lawless, 217; more difficult to 
enforce if beer is legalized, 329, 
331; not cause of lower death 
rate, 259; not enforced, 167, 168, 
175; not fairly tried, xxviii; not 
increased drug addiction, 276, 277, 
365, 367-8; not obeyed, 223; not 
reduced consumption of alcohol, 
167, 168, 175; poisons thousands, 
256; results of, 210; statewide, 
82-6, 108; successful, xxix-xxxi; 
the only remedy, 40, 363; 
unenforceable, 248; vitiated b 
legalizing beer, 326-31; party, 86, 
97, 191, 200. 

Prohibitionists, silent partners of 
bootleggers, 255. 

Bgpaean By. Vil, \ Villy) 425. OF}. (283, 
284, 203, 351, 352, 353. 

Prosperity brought by prohibition, 
367, 368. 

Protestant churches, 87, 196, 107. 

Przibram, Prof., 320. 

Public health, 209. 

Public morals, xxxv, 17, 98. 

Public opinion, 228. 

Public safety, 98. 

Public sentiment, xvi-xviii, xli, 182, 


189; divided on prohibition, 217; 
makes enforcement difficult, 217. 
Pussyfoot Johnson, 225. 


Bastian Brewers’ Association, 245; 

uebec brewers spend a million dol- 

lars to educate voters, 245; beer 
tax, 235; control system, 170, 245, 
246, 254. 

Qvale, S. V., 180. 

Race suicide, 66. 

Racusin, M. J., 141-50. 

Railroad labor and prohibition, 308, 
300. 

Railroads, 21, 22, 30, ror. 

Ransdell, Joseph E., 79. 

Ratcliffe, +S. 150. 

Real temperance, 192. : 

Rebellions, 33-43, 49, 90, 93, IOI. 

Reform Bureau, ror. 

Reintzer, Prof., 319. 

Reintzer prisms, 320. 

Restaurants increased under pro- 
hibition, 281. 

Revenue lost under prohibition, 166, 
167, 218. 

Rey, Rodolph, 348. 

Rhode Island law violated, 46. 

Right to drink, 363. 

Robbery, arrests for, 285, 290, 291. 

Robertson, D. B., 308. 

Rockefeller, John D., 182, 357, 358, 


359. 

Rockwell, Judge, 303, 326. 

Rome, fall due to alcohol, 72. 

Pega tat Theodore, 339, 359, 360, 
361. 

Rosenau, Dr. Milton, 15, 17. 

Ross, Edward A., 358, 350. 

Rossman, Judge, 280. 

Royal Commission 
Diseases, 76. 

Royal Templars of Temperance, 97. 

Rum running a nation-wide indus- 
try, 219. 

Ruppert vs. Caffey, 173. 

Rush, Benjamin V., 93. 

Russell, Charles E., 332-5. 

Russell, Howard H., roo. 

Russia, 27, 28. 


Saloon, xxiv, 75, 76, 78, 79, 177% 
an assassin, 70, 71; a trap for 
the young, 79; abolished in Que- 
bec, 170, 254; cause of ‘crime, 
76, 78, 79, 100; cause of misery, 
78, 100; cause of vice, 78, 1033 
closed by prohibition, 202, 267; 
condemned by Supreme 
court, 100; corrupts politics, 47, 
79; factory, 29; in Newark, 230; 
increased under prohibition, 247; 
more destructive than war, 79; 
number limited by law, 91, 93: 
the poor man’s club, xxi; refuses 
to pbey law, 33-51, 102, 103, 140- 
50; substitutes must be provided, 
209; temperance, 102; under pro- 
hibition, 141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 


on Venereal 


OO EE a Sn ee 


INDEX 379 


149, 230; Supreme court on, 78, 
100; violate the law, 328. 

San Francisco, crime in, 78, 79. 

Savage, George, 80. 

Savings accounts, increased by pro- 
hibition, 267, 268, 270, 281, 208, 
334, 366, 367; in Russia, 27, 28. 

Savings banks, see Banks. 

Scaife ales ys7. 

Scanlon, Charles, 108. 

School attendance increased by pro- 
hibition, 268, 270, 276, 297. 

Search and seizure, 113, 191. 

Search warrants, 116. 

Seized liquors, 114. 

Seizure of vehicles, 114. 

Servant problem, 28. 

Servants, sale of liquor to, 92. 

Sheppard, L. E., 308. 

Sheppard, Morris, 88. 

Sherman, Lawrence Y., 53, 54. 

Ships, liquor on, 230, 231. 

Shipping, 23, 104, 195. 

Sickness, decreased by prohibition, 
267, 268, 270. 

Slavery, 30, 254. 

Slaves, 82. 

Smith, Adam, 28. 

Smith, Alfred E., xxv, 255, 256. 

Smith, August, 320. 

Smith, Sidney, 350. 

Smuggling of liquor, xiv, 119, 135, 
136, 167, 170, 244, 245; a na- 
tion-wide industry, 219; difficult 
tOy DIEVeNt,, 217. é 

Sober society, 94. 

Social evil facilitated by wine and 
beer, 366. 

Society for promotion of temper- 


ance, 95. 

Soldiers’ relief, 215. 

Sons of Temperance, 95. 

South Carolina state dispensary, 46, 
AT AS TOOy LI O2- 

Southworth, E., 325. 

Spoils system, 117-31, 152. 

Standard Oil Co., 357, 358, 359, 361. 

Starkes | 510, 

Starling, Ernest H., 18. 

State dispensary system, 46, 47, 48, 
100, 102, 

State Temperance Alliance, 330. 

States’ rights destroyed by Eight- 
eenth amendment, 188. 

State-wide prohibition, xxxv, 95, 
102, 200; states adopting, 84, 85; 
in Kansas, 08, 104. 

Stayton, W. H., 186-08. 

Stearns, A. W., 365. 

Steel Trust endorses prohibition for 
workmen, 268-71. 

Sterling, Thomas, 126. 

Stewart, G. N., 3-5. 

Stills, xiv, 167, 216. 

Stoddard, Cora F., 322-31. 

Stokes HeeGraxvy 210: 

Stone, Rey. Dr., 348. 

Stone, Warren S., 308. 

Storage of liquor, 115. 


Storey, Charles A., 342. 

Strikes, 279. 

Strumpel, Prof., 321. 

Subway tavern, 102. 

Suicide, 54, 78, 213. 

Sunday closing, 35, 36, 46, 51, 52, 
Gin O2,) 102) 1103. 

Supreme Court, xiv, xxvi, 95, 97, 98, 


09;, 100, *104,) 105,406, 4 ' 8765 
quoted, 78, 98, 99, 100. 
Swaney, William B., 170. 
Switzerland, drunkenness in, 347, 


348. 
Syracuse University, 155, 360, 361. 


Taft, William H., xxxviii, 103, 367. 

Tallack, William, 75. 

Taney, Roger B., 95. 

Tavern, Temperance, 102. 

Taverns of Quebec, 245. 

Tax, on beer, 235; on illegal sales, 
05s 

Taxes, 2209. 

Taxes from liquor, xxiii; unneces- 
sary, 271. 

Taylor, Frederic, 277. 

Teamsters, 24. 

Teapot Dome, 350. 

Temperance, 251; can’t be made by 
law, 207; set back by prohibition, 
19%-3; “real,” 1925) saloon, 102; 
societies, xxxix, 82, 86, 94. 

Templars of Honor and Temperance, 


95. 

Ten days whisky war, 1o1. 

Tennessee Coal and Iron Co., 270. 

Territories dry, 86. 

Thieme, Theodore F., 47. 

Thompson, J. Whitaker, 144. 

Tilden, Freeman, 48. 

Tillman, Benjamin R., 46, tor. 

Tinkham, George H., 126. 

Todd, Rev. John, 339. 

Tomes, Robert, 345. 

Treating custom, 215. 

Treaty with Great Britain, 105, 106. 

Trucks, xxi, 24. 

Tubbs, Miss, 225, 226, 227, 220, 
236, 

Tuberculosis, 74, 75, 275, 276. 

Tumulty, Joseph P., 260. 

Tuohy, Ferdinand, 258. 

Tweed, William M., 350. 

Two per cent beer tried in Georgia, 
303, 304. 

Two seventy-five beer, 17, 18, 1053 
is intoxicating, 316, 317; is not 
intoxicating, 173, 261. 

Traffic violations, arrests for, 286, 


287. 
Tyre, fall due to alcohol, 72. 


Union dues, BG 

United Friends of Temperance, 97. 

United States Brewers’ Associa- 
tion, 36, 37. 

United States House of Representa- 
tives, 104. 

United States Navy, 97, 101. 


380 


United States Senate, 36, 37, 99. 

United States Steel Corporation, 
268, 269, 271. 

Retr eray, men bootleggers, 155, 
15 

Unsanitary liquor, xviii, xix. 

Upshaw, William D., 190, 195. 


Venereal diseases, 76. 

Vernon, vis Nae s: 

Vice, Xxxv, 53, 75, 78, 79. 

Vitamines, none 2 Avon 273. 

Volk, Lester D., 36 

Volstead Act, or Xiii, Xiv-xx1, 
RANI XPOS TOO, T0015, nL a7, 
LIGSMhiec well oe MTOM Ml 72 ere LO! 
adoption of, 89, 105; can be en- 
forced, 364; causes crime, 186, 
212, 213; a conscious lie, 248; 
corrupts police, 260; discriminates 
against poor, 189; a failure, 250; 


favors farmers, 189; Gary op- 
poses modification, 269; hypo- 
critical, 189, 190; makes new 
crime, 353; needs modification, 


219; not a cause of crime, 362; 
not enforced, 119, 123, 135, 136, 
138-50, 167, 168, 172; not honest, 
255, 259; not obeyed, 182; not 
supported by public, 185; over- 
steps Eighteenth amendment, 248; 
source of corruption, 256; takes 
up time of district attorneys, 
262, 263; Taft opposes modifica- 
tion, 367; too drastic, 218; unen- 
forceable, 259, 260; violated, 2556 
Vyle, G. C., 333. 


Walnut, T. Henry, 124, 125, 129-31, 
PETITE 2; 

War, 34, 35,36, 37, 60, 79, 83, 84, 
164; prohibition act, 104. 

Warren, W. F., 343. 

Washington, George, 33, 49, 93. 

Washington Temperance Society, 95. 

Washingtonian Home, 330. 

Webb-Kenyon Act, 103, 104. 

Weeks, John W., xxv. 

Weisley, A. J., 141. 

Wells, Willliam, 344. 

Welminsky, Dr., 320. 

Wheeler, George W., 151. 

Wheeler, Wayne B., 33-43, 49, 121, 
T20, 9x20, 022e S25. 227.0 esose 30. 
250, 267- 8, 292-302. 
hisky, a medicine, 2053 prescrip- 
tions for prohibited in 24 states, 


INDEX 


275; sold on prescription, 239, 
240, 241; rebellion, 33-4, 49, 93; 
ring, 48; war, I0o1. 

Whisky, see also Alcoholic liquor. 

White, Judge, 3309. 

Wholey, C. C., 9-10. 

Wild, Robert B., 16. 

Wiley, Harvey W., 310-17, 362. 

Willebrandt, Mabel W., 138, 180. 

Williams, Edward H., 256. 

Williams, Whiting, 363. 

Wilson Act, go. 

Wilson, Clarence T., 

Wilson, Woodrow, 
117, 260, 332. 

Wine, xiv, xv, XXXvi, 167, 335-52: 
the curse of France, 346; facili- 
tates social evil, 366; has no vita- 
mines, 273; is intoxicating, 364; 
made at home, 216, 226; not de- 
creased use of hard liquor, 341-3} 
not 1/5 as nutritious as grapes, 
273; and beer defeat purpose of 
Eighteenth amendment, 367; and 


47, 364. 
xxvi, 89, 105, 


beer endorsed, 262; countries 
most alcohol drenched, 320; 
drinking countries intemperate, 


343-50; making in California, 350. 

Wines, E. Gru 7 San Os 

Winthrop, Governor, 89. 

Wisconsin Vice Committee, 78, 103. 

Withey, Frederick N., 355 

Woman suffrage opposed by liquor 
interests, 310. 

Women drunk in France, 346, 347. 

W.C.T.U., xxxix, 86, 97, 200. 

Woods, Robert A., 366, 

Work, Hubert, 118. 

Workmen, discriminated against, 
182, 183, 189, 217; favor prohi- 
bition, 270; benefited by prohibi- 
tion, 268-71, 364, 369, 370. 

World markets opened by prohibi- 
tion, 334, 335. 

World Prohibition and Reform Fed- 
eration, Io1. 

World Temperance Convention, 96. 

World’s Temperance Congress, 100. 

World War, 36, 37, 84, 164, 215. 


Th rad Charles, 94. 
ViEM CoA 283. 

WeM. HAs. 283. 

Young people begin by drinking 
beer, 362. 


Zueblin, Charles, 359. 


” 


WG) baoeal 
ae 
; “Bee 


as 


: 
mane 


iy 
ra 
Phe Se 
ny 





DATE DUE 


O ) be Sie 
* — ‘ 


GAYLORD 

































































HI 


| 
| 
| 








> 
5 pS 
———_ 
Sc ———____ 
>= 
Se 
- ———— 
0 EEE 

Picea 
nd 
ee 
oo SSS 
So Ee 
8”_§ =S—S— 
——- 
Serene 


[ 


| 


I 
1 1012 00140 1035 jit 





